DR BODOE: HEALTH CARE HAS COLLAPSED UNDER THIS PNM ADMINISTRATION
In view of numerous reports through social and other forms of media about the crisis that is ongoing at the San Fernando General Hospital, there are several questions that need to be answered by this Government. The reports of overcrowding and picture evidence of critically ill patients being widely circulated show some being housed in beds on the corridors.
In view of the mass overcrowding at the SFGH and patients having to also sleep on benches and chairs on the corridors of the hospital, the following questions arise.
Are patients being kept longer because of the delay in getting Blood Tests, MRI’s, X RAY’s, CT Scans and other medical tests?
Is the Bed Bureau Management system now defunct?
Are senior doctors still conducting evening ward rounds to discharge recovering patients?
Is the mass overcrowding a result of a shortage of drugs and supplies to treat in- patients which increases the time they are spending as in-house patients?
Is the fact that ENT patients from Chaguanas District Health Facility are being referred to San Fernando General Hospital instead of the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex contributing to this problem?
Is it that the staff is demoralized because of the lack of provision of adequate resources?
If this is the case then why is the Couva Hospital, with an additional 230 beds, all of the advanced medical equipment, and operating theatre, located just fifteen minutes away from the San Fernando General Hospital, is still closed to the public? Why must the public continue to suffer because of all these shortages when additional resources are sitting idly by?
What about the thousands of Petrotrin Workers and their dependents, who will now have to visit the already overburdened public health sector when the Agustus Long Hospital is closed on the 30th of November?
Is it that these workers have already begun visiting the San Fernando General Hospital knowing that they may have to be removed from the Agustus Long Hospital on Friday?
The suffering public awaits urgent answers from the Minister of Health and the Government.