Latest update April 20th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 12, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
When Junior Minister of Education, Dr. Desrey Fox died, President Bharrat Jagdeo had some acidic remarks to make about the Georgetown Public Hospital. In his vexatious mood, he said that at the GPHC, you can’t find the doctors. Mr. Jagdeo doesn’t seek treatment at that hospital so he had to hear that sentiment from people. And no doubt all his Ministers heard it too. And no doubt most Guyanese have been told about it.
One would have thought that Dr. Fox’s experience would have made Mr. Jagdeo so livid that he would have read the riot act to the recalcitrant doctors.
Sadly the situation remains the same. It is my sincere belief that at no other hospital in the entire world, doctors have no accountability to superiors. It is an act of madness in management science as to what goes on at the GPHC. I say in all honesty, even the most junior doctor at the GPHC is his or her own boss.
There is no way we could do our own thing at UG the way doctors do theirs at GPHC. Here is my experience at this institution since the beginning of 2011.
I took my nephew to see a specialist. After waiting for two hours, we saw him. He was sent for blood tests and X-rays.
The lines were so long that after we secured those documents, the doctor had left. He only sees you on Mondays. If the blood examination had revealed serious threats, we would have had to seek private sources or wait for another week.
We returned a week after to see the same specialist because the guy only tends to patients on Mondays. After suffering a car accident, I took my nephew to Accident and Emergency (AER). I warn you that what you are about to read, happened, and only takes place at GPHC.
After waiting for two hours, he saw the doctor. Sent for X-rays, we had to wait for twenty minutes for him to be wheeled because the porters were not responding. He was given a prescription to collect Plaster of Paris, pins, straps, bandages etc that are necessary to have the limb plastered. At the pharmacy, the line had about fifty persons.
When he got through and proceeded to the Plaster of Paris room to be strapped up, the technician was leaving. I implored him to stay to plaster my nephew but he said he had been alone in the room for one hour and now he has been summoned by a matron in a ward.
Commonsense flew out the window at GPHC. If the stuff was in the Plaster of Paris room in the first place, my nephew would have been treated right away.
I took Dale Andrews to Accident and Emergency. Mark Benschop’s girlfriend joined me. After waiting for four hours, around 13.00 hours, we saw a little girl crying in a corner. We spoke to her.
She said heat was coming out of her face as if her visage was on fire. Her mom said she was waiting since 7 a.m. I intervened and was told that her name was called at 11.00 hours but there was no response. The mother told us she didn’t hear the call. Now brace yourself for more madness at GPHC.
The Accident and Emergency room is a section of GPHC that is a place of confusion with a huge fan making a lot of noise. But even crazier was the person calling the names out. She comes through a door, and in a soft tone, announces your name then she goes back inside.
I was livid. I went up to her and told her that with the kind of decibels that play at AER how can anyone hear her.
Has GPHC ever heard about a speaker system? The Plaster of Paris section is one of the worst corners of the globe. Every day, patients gather there from 7 a.m. but are only examined about 10 a.m. because there are daily meetings in the room.
My nephew had to be there on Thursday morning. I refused to allow a situation where fifty patients have to wait while a meeting takes place.
I pushed the door and a confrontation ensued. I objected to the contempt shown to patients. They called the guards. I wasn’t intimidated.
I walked over to Michael Khan’s office, the CEO of GPHC to protest these daily morning discussions while patients are groaning outside. He was not there so I asked his secretary to call Dr. Leslie Ramsammy the Health Minister. He wasn’t there too.
Here is the pathetic explanation for the daily confabulations. Each morning the doctors, UG medical students and technicians meet to analyse the files of the patients that came the day before. So why can’t they do that on another day since those patients are treated and would have a future appointment?
I am calling on Mike Khan and Dr. Ramsammy to stop this management stupidity. Finally, the UG medical students are being trained at GPHC by the senior doctors who are on duty.
After each patient is seen, a long discussion takes place between the senior doctor and his students. That adds to the waiting period. That adds to the insanity. Can’t Nietzsche’s Übermensch save Guyana?
Where is the BETTER MANAGEMENT/RENEGOTIATION OF THE OIL CONTRACTS you promised Jagdeo?
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