Chairman of the South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) Dr Lackram Bodoe has admitted that it is difficult to attract neurosurgeons to work at the San Fernando General Hospital, despite the placement of advertisements locally and internationally.
He was speaking at the SWRHA's public board meeting at City Hall on Thursday night. The hospital has been without the services of a neurosurgeon for the past two years. Patients with head injuries are usually sent to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope, or the Port-of-Spain General Hospital.Addressing questions about when a neurosurgeon will be available at the hospital, Bodoe said the Minister of Health and SWRHA are committed to providing a full-time neurosurgeon in the shortest period of time.
"It is a major concern of mine but we are having difficulties in attracting specialised doctors and it is not because of a lack of trying...We have placed advertisements but there are constraints," Bodoe said.He also revealed that the San Fernando teaching hospital will be commissioned in the latter part of this year.Bodoe said SWRHA remains committed to reducing the morbidity and mortality rate from chronic non-communicable diseases by 20 per cent.
"We also hope to introduce systems to support the functioning of surgical clinics on weekends and the opening of operating theatres up to 10 pm," he said."The SWRHA also hopes to reduce the average waiting time for medical reports to two weeks as the average waiting time is four weeks."He said they were also dealing with overcrowding and parking problems at the hospital.
He added that upgrades of the X-ray building of the Point Fortin Area Hospital was also on the agenda as well as increased opening hours for health centres, including weekends.Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer of SWRHA Anil Gosine said it was difficult to attract neurosurgeons with the salary that the Regional Health Authority offers.
"In the next three weeks we are putting out an advertisement to attract them through contracts and to see if a group of neurosurgeons will come together and provide that service for us in the SWRHA," Gosine said.He also said that once the San Fernando teaching hospital comes on stream, there will be a need for extra inpatient staffing.
"We are extending the number of medical wards so that we will need to have increased staffing. We already started the commissioning phase. The pediatric wards will be moving across so they will move with their staff too," Gosine said. He added that the SWRHA was working with the nursing manager to assess human resource requirements.