Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy has announced that his ministry will next month launch patient satisfaction surveys at nine hospitals around the country in a continued effort to improve the quality of service offered at health institutions.
Ramsammy told a media briefing at his office on Wednesday that while the surveys, which will be done in the form of questionnaires distributed to patients, are not aimed at trying to find fault with the institutions they are also not aimed at producing answers the ministry wants to hear.
He said the questionnaires would be distributed at both the in-patient and out-patient clinics at the hospitals and persons would be asked about the quality of service received from the hospitals’ staff, cleanliness of the environs, waiting times, overall experience at the hospitals among other questions.
Importantly, the surveys will ask patients if the pharmacies explain to them why they would be required to take certain drugs. According to the minister a lot of the time, patients are given pills to drink and they have no idea why they are doing so.
“These are part of our operating procedures… people are suppose to talk and counsel the patient but these things are not always done and if we do not have processes in place to hold them accountable it will never happen,” Ramsammy said adding that the surveys will be used as accountability measures. The minister said while there are good services provided, at times things “go badly”.
The surveys, for which results are expected by the end of July, will be conducted at the Georgetown Public Hospital, Suddie, Linden, Bartica, and New Amsterdam hospitals, the Diamond Diagnostic Centre and the West Demerara Regional hospital. Two private hospitals, which the minister declined to name, will also be part of the survey.
According to the minister, the exercise, which forms part of the ministry’s quality measurement programme, will be a continuous one which will be executed twice annually. The surveys would be conducted in June and November of each year at the same institutions to allow comparison of the results. New institutions may also be added in the second survey of the year and the minister said the ministry would address the shortcomings that arise out of the surveys.
To ensure that that the surveys are objective, Ramsammy said, the ministry is soliciting volunteers from non-governmental organisations and the University of Guyana student body to administer the questionnaires. He said that soon the ministry would be placing advertisements in the newspapers for volunteers.
“The ministry has absolutely no interest in conducting a survey that will reveal only positive answers since the aim of the assessment is to improve the ills that may exist by garnering an honest feedback from persons that use the institutions,” the minister said.
Training of the volunteers will be done in early June following which the surveys will be conducted.
A key objective of the exercise is to allow hospital staff to recognise areas where they can improve their performance.