Dear Editor,
Would you ever have thought that Suddie Public Hospital after the change of government would be short of drugs and other medical supplies? The Minister of Public Health has visited this hospital twice for 2016, making recommendations and condemning the state of the theatre and the hospital as a whole. For me this was just another talkshop by an incompetent minister. As you enter the compound right in front the entrance of the bottom flat there are some shabby wheelchairs without foot rests to take patients around for treatment. As I sat in my car looking at the hospital, I saw a porter struggling to get a female patient onto the dilapidated wheelchair. This woman could not help herself; common sense would tell anyone that it needed two porters to handle this patient.
As I intervened, I was told that there was a shortage of porters. This is a minister who rented a building for millions of dollars to store drugs when there were other alternatives. He did not see it fit to use one month’s rent of that money to buy some decent wheelchairs for the sick and disabled so their lives could be more comfortable whenever they went to the Suddie Hospital for medical treatment. When my turn arrived for treatment, the doctor found that there was a shortage of the medication I was using. He told the matron and she brought a substitute which the doctor used.
I asked myself with all this money being budgeted every year for drugs, why there is a shortage at this hospital? Patients are asked to buy their own drugs from a pharmacy nearby. This hospital is poorly managed. You go there early in the morning for treatment and have to wait in long lines. All you see is some nurses texting on their cell phones while some of them are busy talking away as they do not see you; no one would come to the patient and ask them their problem. The family of the patient has to go and interrupt them and make their voices heard. Something has to be done urgently to rectify this situation.
I know that the people voted for change and for an end to maladministration at these hospitals, as well as for a return to self-respect and a fair deal for patients. The coalition government knows this too. The President knows that he has made many blunders in selecting some of his ministers, who are still struggling with their ministries because of incompetence. The government is half-way through it
5-year-term, and some ministers are still to perform and deliver the goods.
Coming back to health care, people from all over the coast and Pomeroon come to Suddie hospital for good treatment, and they should not have to hear that there is a shortage of drugs and medical supplies. There should be round-the-clock service, porters and good wheelchairs. The hospital should be recognized as being the best in Region Two, with sophisticated medical care, but it’s far from this.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan
