On Tuesday and Wednesday, a team from the Bridges Global Medical Mission visited the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC) and conducted a two-day clinic, where scores of patients benefited from diagnoses and treatment, the Department of Public Information (DPI) said yesterday.
Spearheading the team was Professor Sharon Armstead, who is a respiratory therapist and a professor at the Texas State University. She said that there is urgent need for the clinic to be established in Linden. She believes the bauxite mining in the town is the main reason that Lindeners are more prone to respiratory diseases.
“I believe Linden needs its own clinic, we can speak to the volume of patients that responded today…. Having that clinic here is priceless, we must have our own, we must do this for Linden… I really want to see the hospital open up the clinic, if we can’t have it every day, at least once a month,” she said, according to DPI.
Armstead, who visited with 15 of her students, said that she is also asthmatic and when she visits Linden, she has to go on special medication to be able to breathe. Following these recommendations, Public Relations Officer of LHC Toshanna Allicock said, “We have taken the recommendations seriously and we are currently identifying doctors to be trained so that the spirometry department can operate with full capacity in the shortest possible time.”
DPI said that the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC) is currently identifying doctors who will be trained in spirometry testing, after which they will be assigned to manage the asthma/Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) clinic, which is expected to commence in the shortest possible time.
Armstead said that many patients are diagnosed with asthma and COPD and are treated for these diseases, but never underwent spirometry testing and only through that testing, can a patient be accurately diagnosed.
For years, Lindeners have suffered from lung ailments as a result of dust from the bauxite operations.
