Despite patient demonstrations and staff protests, the woes at the West Demerara Regional Hospital are still continuing as members of the public have condemned the poor service offered by the medical facility.
Guyana Times International recently caught up with a number of patients who sought treatment for various aliments at the Hospital located at Best Village, West Coast Demerara in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara).Their complaints, while varied, all pointed to the same issue – medical staff at the facility continue to neglect the needs of patients.
This publication was reliably informed that an elderly male patient (name provided), said to be in his 90s, complaining of respiratory problems was accompanied by family members to the West Demerara Regional Hospital. This newspaper was told that nurses were reportedly reluctant to offer the man the requisite apparatus to assist his breathing for several hours.
After family members raised concerns, the doctor pleaded with nurses repeatedly before they complied with the request to give the elderly man oxygen. The man, however, reportedly died moments after he received the treatment last week Wednesday.
Another patient who was rushed to the facility with complications associated with high blood pressure on Wednesday last revealed that nurses at the Hospital tested her blood pressure some four hours after she arrived in pain. The woman observed that she had arrived around 08:00h and was attended to after 12:00h that afternoon.
On Tuesday morning, this newspaper again visited the Hospital and got a glimpse of the reported issue at the Region’s main medical facility. At that time, there were a small number of patients seeking medical attention for various ailments. One such patient was a young man who was complaining of chest pain. There were also an elderly woman and a young child.
During the visit, it was observed that the armed security officer who was recently put in place after some doctors were attacked by members of the public, was sitting in the company of nurses and the doctor on duty in the emergency unit. Family members complained to this newspaper that they had to make repeated requests to the medical personnel before they attended to affected patients.
The nurses and the doctor for the better part of two hours were seen sitting down and engaged in extensive conversations and at times hearty laughter instead of attending to patients. Another observation made was that there was no porter on duty early Tuesday morning to assist patients in wheelchairs. In fact, family members of the elderly woman had the arduous task of transporting the patient down a ramp to a waiting car.
Another problem unearthed in that short period was that hospital staff reportedly sent the test results of a sick child with an unrelated individual who had also retrieved separate results. In an apparent breach of protocol, the woman was heard enquiring about the family members of the child, saying that the lab had sent the results with her.
However, the mother of the child and other relatives had left the facility moments before. Some patients suggested that the family perhaps sought the services of an alternative hospital owing to the unprofessional behaviour of staff at the West Demerara Hospital. Another woman, aged 61, highlighted the relaxed attitude of staff by asking the nurses to have her pressure tested early that Tuesday morning. She waited for over half an hour despite few patients being present and the nurses sitting engaged in deep conversation. Unbeknownst to staff at the hospital, one of the patients who sought medical attention last week was said to be an official at the Public Health Ministry.
For years, members of the public have condemned the poor services offered at the West Demerara Hospital, but the facility was in a state of panic late last month when doctors downed their equipment and refused to work. The doctors had said that they were disappointed, frustrated, disgusted and fed-up with the way in which their daily verbal grievances were handled by the Public Health Ministry.
The doctors had called for better security at the facility following a number of incidents where doctors were either physically attacked or verbally abused by patients and others. An incident had seen two doctors being attacked by a patient and his relatives and even spat upon. Other improvements the doctors called for included better sanitation at the hospital, tools to work with and for a drug shortage issue to be rectified.
