Beds on the medical wards of the San Fernando General Hospital were cleared yesterday after another report of overcrowding and an overspill of patients to the corridors on the previous day. Scores of patients were discharged, making available the much sought-after beds for ailing patients.
Chief executive officer of the South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) Anil Gosine said everyday the hospital continues to employ innovative ways to deal with the chronic bed shortage. "But you have to remember San Fernando General Hospital serves half of the population of Trinidad and Tobago. We continue to look and create new areas, provide more and more beds, yet we still have this overcrowding problem."
He said the problem might be solved when the proposed hospitals for Point Fortin, Couva and Penal are constructed and the Chancery Lane Complex, which is to be used as an extension of the hospital, comes on stream. In the interim, he said one of the innovative ways the SWRHA has employed to deal with the chronic bed shortage was through the establishment of a Bed Management Bureau (BMB) to monitor bed availability.
"The BMB, which was started about one and a half years ago, consists of about three patient care co-ordinators or nurses, who would go around or call each ward, on a daily basis, to find out where beds are available. "In this way, we would know at any time, what beds are available and where they are available."
Gosine explained that on a daily basis the majority of patient admission is confined to the five medical wards. "When these wards are filled," he said, "the overflow are sent to other wards where the BMB would have identified beds, either in the ENT, or in some surgical wards." He said medical patients are not sent to obstetrics and gynaecology wards.
Gosine said there was a level of difficulty for doctors to manage medical patients in another ward. He said the doctors usually follow the patients and when beds becomes available in the medical ward, the patients are subsequently transferred.
