Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

As Ce­dros res­i­dents threat­en to mount protest ac­tion for bet­ter health­care this week, Point Fortin MP Paula Gopee-Scoon is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to make pro­vi­sions in the up­com­ing bud­get to build the promised Point Fortin hos­pi­tal. In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Gopee-Scoon said she sus­pect­ed that the Gov­ern­ment would again de­ny the peo­ple of the south-west­ern penin­su­la prop­er health­care. She claimed ser­vice at the Point Fortin hos­pi­tal con­tin­ues to de­te­ri­o­rate un­der the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship coali­tion gov­ern­ment, which in its ini­tial bud­get iden­ti­fied the con­struc­tion of the hos­pi­tal as a pri­or­i­ty.

The MP said sev­en nurs­es had re­tired and re­signed from the Point Fortin hos­pi­tal, and the hos­pi­tal's X-ray fa­cil­i­ty has been out of com­mis­sion for more than a month. "It is my un­der­stand­ing that the hos­pi­tal's lone spe­cial­ist ser­vice, ob­stet­rics and gy­nae­col­o­gy, is no longer avail­able, save and ex­cept for the rel­a­tive out­pa­tient clin­ic and emer­gency de­liv­er­ies. Nor­mal de­liv­ery must now be done at San Fer­nan­do, mean­ing that a preg­nant moth­er from as far as Ce­dros or Ica­cos must en­dure a min­i­mum two-hour dri­ve at great health risk to both moth­er and child," she said.

De­scrib­ing the state of the ex­ist­ing hos­pi­tal as "woe­ful­ly poor, dis­grace­ful and haz­ardous," Gopee-Scoon com­plained that "Wards A, B and Ac­ci­dent & Emer­gency are con­nect­ed by a long cor­ri­dor which is in a de­plorable con­di­tion with pieces of con­crete struc­ture al­ready falling away. "Pa­tients en route to the sur­gi­cal unit are ex­posed to this risk and al­so the rain and strong winds," she said.

"For some­one in re­cov­ery the sur­round­ings are dis­mal and gloomy and does not lend to the well­be­ing of pa­tients. De­spite all, the skele­ton staff, doc­tors, nurs­es and oth­er med­ical staff, must be con­grat­u­lat­ed for their ded­i­ca­tion and com­mit­ment to health care. It is not un­com­mon that nurs­es en­dure dou­ble and even triple shifts in the best in­ter­est of pa­tients," she said.

With re­gard to health­care in the Ce­dros and Ica­cos ar­eas, Gopee-Scoon said res­i­dents' re­quests for ex­tend­ed hours of care have not ma­te­ri­alised. "The peo­ple of Point Fortin are to­tal­ly fed up and dis­gust­ed at the hor­rif­ic treat­ment met­ed out to them while the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to ex­tract re­sources from the south-west," she said. "The sit­u­a­tion is trag­ic and un­ten­able, and un­less cor­rect­ed will be met with a mas­sive show of dis­con­tent and re­volt."

Pres­i­dent of the Granville Vil­lage Coun­cil Shankar Teeluchs­ingh called on the Gov­ern­ment to build the Ce­dros Health Fa­cil­i­ty as well as the Point Fortin hos­pi­tal. Chastis­ing Gopee-Scoon for her lack of rep­re­sen­ta­tion, Teeluchs­ingh said un­der the PNM, the Ce­dros health fa­cil­i­ty was shut down and the hos­pi­tal phar­ma­cy was re­lo­cat­ed to Point Fortin.

"This hos­pi­tal should have been built a long time but the PNM made us suf­fer be­cause it was un­der Gopee-Scoon that the Ce­dros nurs­ing quar­ters were closed and the am­bu­lance ser­vice was shift­ed." He added that un­der the Part­ner­ship, the sit­u­a­tion re­mained the same, and said the Bam­boo, Chatham and Granville vil­lage coun­cils were hold­ing meet­ings to dis­cuss planned protest ac­tion. Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan said the Point Fortin hos­pi­tal re­mained on Gov­ern­ment's agen­da and would be dis­cussed in the bud­get.