On Sunday, even as World Patient Safety Day was being observed, readers of this newspaper had access to the first-hand account of a young woman who had recently faced disrespect and mistreatment at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH). In her own words, published in the weekly “Women’s Chronicles” column, the young woman related the harrowing circumstances she endured in late August when she was admitted to the GPH for what should have been a routine laparoscopic procedure to remove ovarian cysts.
There was an apparent lack of communication about her surgery as it was changed from minimally invasive to an open procedure with little notice afforded to the young woman. For the most part, the behaviour of the nurses in the maternity surgical ward ranged from dismissive to callous, with some ignorance thrown in as well. Tellingly, in the days she spent at the GPH, the young woman was only able to pinpoint a single nurse who embodied the true tenets of that vocation.
Nor was the young woman solely designated to receive this atrocious treatment. In fact, she watched it play out day and night against the women hospitalised along with her, and told of various other indignities and errors that occurred from those who suffered them. What was painfully obvious from her narrative was that the majority of the patients in the GPH maternity surgical ward appeared to believe they could not speak out against the contemptible behaviours of the hospital staff. On the flip side, it was also pellucid that the nurses felt the patients were at their mercy, had no rights and could be treated like old boots.
The young woman opined: “… I believe that a lot of patients’ deaths are not caused by the procedures they undergo but rather by the lack of proper aftercare from the nurses in charge. While I understand that wages may not be attractive, nurses have taken an oath to care for patients…” She also said that doctors should provide clearer information to patients at all material times before and after procedures.
Unfortunately, the dreadful treatment of the infirm is an age-old problem. It might not be confined to the GPH or Guyana for that matter, but its decades of endurance is cause for concern. The government, through the Ministry of Health, cannot claim to be providing quality healthcare while patient safety and advocacy remain in the pits. The point being made here, without fear of contradiction, is that quality healthcare is unattainable unless patient safety becomes paramount. What obtains in Guyana at the moment is less than adequate. In addition, patients are unable and/or afraid to use their voices to demand what should be their basic rights, including but not limited to a safe and clean healthcare environment, information, privacy, confidentiality, dignity, respect, and competent and professional healthcare workers to attend them.
Ahead of World Patient Safety Day, the World Health Organisation (WHO) hosted a global conference at its headquarters in Geneva and online on September 12 and 13 attended by more than 2,300 participants, including patient advocates and representatives of patients’ organisations. At the end of it, agreement was reached on the first ever patient safety rights charter, which aims at ensuring that the voices of patients are heard and their right to safe healthcare protected. WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was quoted as saying, “… if it’s not safe, it’s not care. Patient safety is an ethical and moral imperative grounded in the health care principle ‘First, do no harm’…”
Meanwhile, according to the WHO, the interim results of a survey of its member states conducted this year on the implementation of a global patient safety action plan revealed a huge gap, “with good practices largely concentrated in higher-income countries’’. This year, Guyana was reclassified as a high-income country by the World Bank, in view of its new status as an oil-producing nation. Its proceeds from the oil and gas sector has moved this country into the same bracket with the US, the UK, France, the United Arab Emirates, Barbados, The Bahamas and the Cayman Islands among others, according to the World Bank country classification index. However, in terms of good practices in its health sector, and virtually every other, it has not moved an inch from where it languished pre-oil.
This is unlikely to change unless the current narrow indicators used to measure progress are expanded. There is a need to look beyond that which is material. This country’s development ought to be determined by the overall financial circumstances of its people, their health, well-being and educational status. At this stage, when these are all taken into consideration, our score is a big fat F. Better can and must be done.
