While residents on the Essequibo Coast are pleased with the services they have been receiving at the Suddie Hospital, they are calling for an endoscopy specialist to be sent to the facility so as to avoid them being referred out of the area.
They told this newspaper that it is very expensive and inconvenient for them to travel to the West Demerara Regional Hospital or to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC) to have the test done.
The residents called on the government to ensure that a specialist is available at the hospital to conduct the tests so to make life easier for them.
One woman said she was given a referral to do the test at the GPHC and she used the speedboat just so that she can return the same day. The trip would cost her about $10,000.
She said if the test was done right at the hospital she would have saved a lot of money.
She recalled that the hospital had specialists before but she was told that they were transferred to other areas.
A senior official of the hospital confirmed to this newspaper that the specialists were sent to other areas.
Other patients that this newspaper spoke to said they were pleased with the services at the hospital and that so far they have had no problem.
“Whatever treatment we come here for we always get through with it,” a patient who suffers from diabetes and hypertension, said.
In the case of another woman, when she was referred to the GPHC for an endoscopy, her experience was not so good.
She ended up spending two weeks in Georgetown without getting the endoscopy done because the “doctor wrote it on an X-ray paper instead of a referral paper.”
She said: “I had to go through back the system and get registered to get to see the doctor… Then I had to get a date to go back and do the test.”
But she became frustrated when she showed up for the appointment and was told that “they already full up and I had to get another date.”
The new date would have been too long for her to wait in Georgetown so she has still not been treated for her condition.
She was disappointed that in cases like this the GPHC did not see it fit to give her priority.
Meanwhile, another resident said it is his desire to see an ophthalmology department established at the hospital. He said it is about time patients have the surgeries done right there in Essequibo instead of depending on the GPHC.
According to him, it is not only difficult for patients to get there to do the surgeries but for their families to find accommodation also.
