Meanwhile: Moms, babies risk death at Line-In

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Meanwhile: Moms, babies risk death at Line-In

[ QUOTE ]
TG, mek mi tell u dis..u tawk tings, people have it fi seh a lie u a tell cause one smaddy cyan experience all dat ...but is troo dem no know...tings a gwane a yaad long before people a get press fi it

mi use fi go KPH a nite time cause mi sista was a docta deh a nite an mi fada neva wan har one fi haffi drive come up wen she deh deh a nite...mi use fi siddung eena Casualty behind di hell of a big book weh alll incoming patients get record eena..mi volunteer as a teenager an who was gwine fi tell me 'no' ...

an mek mi tell u seh, tings dung deh was bad in terms of shortages but nutten like is weh a gwane eena dis time of advanced dis an dat an money a get barra for dis an dat

wen u tink seh docta weh wi train a yaad plus nurse weh wi a train, haffi go deh fi inservice training , is a bloody crime and shame

mi memba wen Andrews, Medical Associates etc was private hospital weh people really juss go fi show dem can go private, but if u had anyting seriously wrong wid u, is UC an KPH u go cause di care was fuss class....

an now is like as we progress dem mek di hospital tek awn di surrounding real estate classification

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Yes the KPH has had its problems but has been for all that the premier public hospital in the region.
Of course the 70s worsened everything and a 1980s Eddie Blinds Governments could ill afford to spend any more than it did on elevators and extra bed.
The heavy caseload is another factor, but another problem is the KPH suffers from is, location, location, location.

In the middle of the war zone, where very likely resources meant for the Jubilee, The KPH and Slipen Road Clinic is routinely siphoned and mis-directed to the genetically connected.

That been said if roach was crawling over patients, bird droppings were in the operating theater and the one Autoclave was not working in the 80s Missa Menlie and his posse would block the streets.
As I see it no Government after the 80s has no excuse, because they had seen the 70s, they bawled that better must come in the 80s then turn around and boops out all the money in the 90s.

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Meanwhile: Moms, babies risk death at Line-In


Mon Oct 2, 2006
Government officials touring Victoria Jubilee Hospital


A team of Government officials is touring sections of the Victoria Jubilee Hospital in order to examine conditions at the facility on Monday.

Information Minister Colin Campbell told journalists at Monday afternoon's post cabinet press briefing that the tour is in order to examine the reports highlighted in the media within the past week.

The team includes two female ministers of Government.

Information Minister Colin Campbell said a preliminary report done by the Ministry of Health and released to Cabinet of Monday, indicated that the baby born to mother Carolyn Edwards-Brown died from suffocation.

The minister said however a more extensive investigation will be carried out into the matter.

In the meantime Health Minister Horace Dalley has called a press conference for Tuesday to respond to the damming allegations about conditions at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital.

But even as Mr. Dalley prepares his response JLP spokesman on health Dr. Kenneth Baugh says nothing short of a transformation of the sector will be acceptable.

“I have asked for a full enquiry into the Regional Health Authority because they are taking a lot of money to sustain them and taking money away from the point of health care,” revealed Dr. Baugh.

“We need to look at the management structure of hospitals, because the changes that have been made over the last four to five years have not worked out to the benefit of the hospitals. In fact it has detracted from the functioning of the hospitals,” he added.

Meanwhile Dr. Baugh has endorsed a proposal from the Jamaica Medical Doctors Association for the private sector to play a greater role in funding the public health sector.

But Dr. Baugh says this must be done in partnership with the Government.

“We can't just ask the Jamaican Diaspora or the private sector to contribute. We have to design how that contribution has to be made in a meaningful way, in a way the resources can be made readily available to upgrade the services and provide services, not only for those persons who are contributing but for everybody so it can be done in an equitable way,” said the JLP spokesman on health.

http://www.radiojamaica.com/news/story.php?category=2&story=28746

[RichD]

Re: Meanwhile: Moms, babies risk death at Line-In

[ QUOTE ]
Pregnant issue at Victoria Jubilee Hospital


Wednesday, October 04, 2006



From what highly placed Observer sources are telling us, there is much more to the recent issue about a defunct autoclave at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital (VJH) than meets the naked eye. For sure, the absence of an autoclave, a device used to sterilise equipment needed to perform operations, is itself a major issue, since it puts people's lives at risk.

But we are being told, and compellingly so, that the surfacing of the information about the malfunctioning autoclave was not all and entirely about the compassion of doctors for poor patients, inasmuch as we would like to believe that.

The issue is very pregnant with questions that need urgent answers, both from the doctors who operate at the VJH and the administration of the maternity hospital, in the interest of the Jamaican public.

Is it true, for example, that while hospital regulations say doctors operating at KPH/VJH may use the public facilities to treat one private patient for every three public patients they treat, what actually obtains is the opposite?

Is it true that as a result of the use of hospital facilities for private patients, poorer public patients have to endure a much longer wait for treatment of major health cases?
Is it true that an autoclave was requested from the nearby KPH for a private patient at VJH, but was not granted because the doctor could not, as required by hospital regulations, admit that it was required for a private and not a public patient?
Is it true that hospital supplies are frequently finding their way to private surgeries?

Because we have traditionally held doctors in such high esteem, we do not want to believe an iota of the suggestion that what we have come to regard as a noble act of whistle-blowing in the public interest is nothing more than self-interest.

Yet, the stake in this one is far too high to proceed on the basis of assumptions about anyone's goodwill and compassion. It is people's lives that are in the balance.
The inquiry being conducted by the health ministry into this sordid affair must dig deep and run fast. It can't be another one that stretches on into oblivion, on the calculated basis that Jamaicans are only into nine-day wonders and will soon forget it.

We are, of course, equally concerned to hear answers around the startling information provided by Dr Lloyd Goldson, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the hospital.

Dr Goldson has told us that operations are being cancelled daily, because of the defunct autoclave, 60 cases in the last six weeks alone. In addition, he said that the hospital has been plagued by problems such as a severe shortage of nurses and faulty elevators, one of which trapped a patient for an hour recently.
What makes the elevator problem critical is that whenever it is not working, cases have to be cancelled.

All this, if true, is scandalous.
It begs the question: What on earth is happening at the KPH/VJH? Whatever it is, no one can claim complete innocence, not the members of the hospital's administration and not the medical staff.
It's not enough to point the fingers at someone else. They are all in it together.


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[Tuff Gong]

Re: Meanwhile: Moms, babies risk death at Line-In


Fri Oct 6, 2006
Family blames health facilities for death of pregnant young woman

A St. Elizabeth family is pointing fingers at the country's health sector this afternoon following the death of an 18-year-old woman and her unborn child.

The mother and unborn child died in the Mandeville Hospital Thursday and the family believes this could have been prevented.

Eighteen year old Miska Smith of Burnt Ground, St. Elizabeth was scheduled to give birth Saturday but instead of welcoming the baby her family is now preparing for her funeral.

The family says on Saturday night Miss Smith started feeling pain and was taken to the Black River Hospital on Sunday.

According to the family she was kept overnight and given a prescription for antibiotics before being released on Monday.

By Tuesday night Miss Smith was feeling worse and was taken to the Mandeville Hospital.

Her family members say doctors at that hospital diagnosed her with a severe case of diabetes and admitted her immediately.

The family members say they were told that the doctors would immediately begin administering drugs to reduce her sugar level.

However when they visited the hospital Thursday they were told that Ms. Smith and her unborn child had died.

Family friend Vivian McKenley says they are contemplating action against the hospitals.

When our news team contacted the Black River Hospital officials there refused to comment on the case.

However an official of the Mandeville Hospital said Miss Smith was a high risk patient who could not be operated on because of the diabetes.

The official said it is believed the baby died before the mother arrived at the hospital.

http://www.radiojamaica.com/news/story.php?category=2&story=28907

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Meanwhile: Moms, babies risk death at Line-In

Valuing ourselves more

Some time ago, my gardener called me at one o’clock in the morning to say that his pregnant wife had gone into labour and that he needed a ride to “Jubilee”. I left them at the entrance, went to park the car, then returned to see how things were going. As I approached the entrance, I heard a woman in a booth shouting at the woman I had dropped off. A carefully sanitised version of what she was saying went something like this; “ …when you were in the act of making this baby nine months ago, were you so ecstatic that you forgot to make preparations for hospital fees?” It’s just that she used crude, colourful, gutter language, punctuated with expletives to make her point. I had difficulty restraining myself.

The anger I felt towards this employee soon transferred itself to the rest of us in the society. In a society that makes a big song and dance about being “dissed”, what is it about us that is responsible for the absence of outrage at the way in which we are treated by those we pay to serve us? Is it in our history or in our water? Both are a bit murky.

Many of the problems at “Jubilee” require money. The problem I witnessed early that morning does not require one cent to correct. I am not shocked by the cockroaches. Not because, as the Permanent Secretary suggests, we have cockroaches in our homes. There are none in my neighbourhood. But I visited the Kingston Public Hospital 12 years ago to see a patient who was severely injured and laying motionless on a bed being kept company by five cockroaches. Nearby, an elderly man, showing no sign of life, was host to one cockroach, which made its way slowly up his chest, all the way to his lower lips before pausing, obviously contemplating its next move.

The problem is not in our politicians, but in ourselves. If we insist on turning ourselves into footmats, we cannot blame them when they use us for that purpose.

Glenn Tucker
Stony Hill
Kingston 9


<u>Article #2</u>

More revelations from health sector
By Kimmo Matthews

There are indications that there are more problems in the island’s ailing health sector with more public officials from various sections of the sector coming forward to disclose their woes.

The island’s National Public Health Laboratory and several clinics across the Corporate Area were the latest organisations to join the list of those voicing their concerns.

The officials, led by St. Patrice Ennis, General Secretary of the Union of Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Personnel (UTASP), have lashed out against the gross conditions under which health workers at these facilities were forced to work.

They said that while they have commended the Government on its announcement that it would be moving to address the problems within the hospitals they, too, were demanding that the Government render some assistance in their direction.

They also said that they were concerned that if the Government did not take a more comprehensive look at all aspects of the health sector then the situation would escalate into a national epidemic.

Strain at lab

In an interview with the Sunday Herald at the National Public Health Laboratory, St. Patrice Ennis, said that the conditions at the facility left much to be desired.

“Here is a place that carries out all of the island’s major lab work. This is where most of the samples from the hospitals would go for testing and as it now stands, the facility is seriously understaffed. More and more persons in the medical field are migrating to other areas of work because of the low salary package and the conditions, which they have been forced to work under. At the laboratory many lab technicians have had to be working double shifts just to fill in,” Ennis said.

He explained further that the facility was suffering from a shortage of chemicals, such as, reagents, which is needed to carry out some of its day-to-day operations.

This shortage, Ennis said, hampered the ability of many hospitals to provide results on blood tests for patients with ailments ranging from cancer to HIV/AIDS in a timely manner. As a result patients were forced to dig deeper into their pockets by going to private laboratories.

Health centres worse

Ennis said that the conditions at many of the health centres across the Corporate Area left much to be desired. He mentioned the Duhaney Park Health Centre where the dental facilities had to be closed down because of its deplorable state.

At the health centre on Windward Road, Ennis said that persons attending were forced to wait under a make-shift tent on the outside, leaving them exposed to the elements.

“These health centres are supposed to give primary care and are supposed to be nipping in the bud the various infections before they develop into more serious health problems. However, the conditions that some of these facility are in, is a mess,” Ennis said.

He suggested that the Government start with the health centres first, as the deplorable condition in which they are in far exceeded that of the hospitals.

More deaths

With questions being raised about the state of hospitals islandwide following the reports of two deaths over the last three weeks, recent information has suggested that more problems were now surfacing in other areas of the sector.

Two weeks ago, the death of a baby at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital, followed by questions being raised by the Medical Association of Jamaica (MAJ) about the gross conditions under which doctors had to be working at the facility, prompted the Ministry of Health into action.

These reports were compounded last Thursday with reports that an 18-year-old mother, Miska Smith of Burnt Ground, St. Elizabeth died with her unborn child at the Mandeville Hospital.

Reports are that Smith was taken to the Black River Hospital on Sunday. She was kept overnight and given a prescription for antibiotics before being released on Monday. On Tuesday, the reports are that the Miss Smith’s health declined and she was taken to the Mandeville Hospital.

It is alleged that doctors at that hospital diagnosed her with a severe case of diabetes and admitted her immediately. She died with her unborn child on Thursday.

Bureaucracy

Last week the Medical Association of Jamaica painted a grim picture about the conditions at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital and described the crisis situation under which doctors were forced to operate.

Last week, Health Minister Horace Dalley argued that bureaucracy and red tape were to be blamed for the state of the nation’s health sector. Speaking at a media briefing Mr. Dalley said the slow processing of requests for medical equipment was seriously hindering the delivery of quality health care to Jamaicans.

http://www.sunheraldjamaica.com/news-story1.htm