Shas­tri Boodan

North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) chair­man Dr Tim Gopeesingh says the au­thor­i­ty is work­ing to ad­dress re­port­ed short­ages of sev­er­al med­ica­tions, in­clud­ing breast can­cer drugs ex­emes­tane, anas­tro­zole and letro­zole, as well as some psy­chi­atric drugs.

Gopeesingh spoke to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day as the NCRHA be­gan in­stalling new re­frig­er­a­tors and mi­crowaves in the car­diac ward of the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC), Mt Hope.

Asked about re­ports of short­ages, Gopeesingh said the NCRHA was work­ing with the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Prop­er­ty De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NIPDEC) and C40 to source the med­ica­tions.

“We are ac­tive­ly en­gag­ing NIPDEC and C40 in the pur­suit of ob­tain­ing these phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, and those not avail­able from NIPDEC, we are pur­chas­ing from phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies to en­sure pa­tients are tak­en care of,” he said.

He said the au­thor­i­ty was work­ing with nurs­es, doc­tors and its phar­ma­cy de­part­ment to en­sure pa­tients re­ceived med­ica­tion they need­ed once short­ages were brought to its at­ten­tion.

“There are ex­pen­sive mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body drugs, and con­sul­tants are work­ing with pro­cure­ment and man­age­ment to get these med­ica­tions for the ben­e­fit of the pa­tients,” Gopeesingh said.

Mean­while, the NCRHA is un­der­tak­ing sev­er­al up­grades aimed at im­prov­ing con­di­tions for pa­tients and staff, Gopeesingh said. He said the au­thor­i­ty was al­so prepar­ing to re­fur­bish all 24 wards.

Gopeesingh said 140 hos­pi­tal beds need to be re­placed, with about 20 new beds al­ready pur­chased. The NCRHA has al­so ac­quired ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 trol­leys and 50 wheel­chairs.

Among the oth­er up­grades are the re­place­ment of eight el­e­va­tors and the pur­chase of new equip­ment for op­er­at­ing the­atres and oth­er spe­cialised ser­vices. The au­thor­i­ty is al­so sourc­ing en­do­scop­ic equip­ment for gas­tro­scopies and colono­scopies, as well as equip­ment to sup­port la­paro­scop­ic surgery.

Gopeesingh said na­tion­al ten­ders would be is­sued for sev­er­al ad­di­tion­al projects in ac­cor­dance with pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion.

The NCRHA is al­so work­ing to en­sure its two CT scan­ners are ful­ly op­er­a­tional, while ad­di­tion­al equip­ment is be­ing pro­cured for op­er­at­ing the­atres.

Be­yond equip­ment and in­fra­struc­ture, he said four doc­tors’ rooms had al­ready been re­fur­bished, with sim­i­lar work now be­ing planned for nurs­es’ rooms.

He said the im­prove­ments were in­tend­ed to make the hos­pi­tal en­vi­ron­ment more com­fort­able for the more than 1,000 nurs­es and near­ly 1,200 doc­tors work­ing at the in­sti­tu­tion.

Gopeesingh al­so re­port­ed progress at the Ari­ma Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, while ac­knowl­edg­ing that some in­fra­struc­tur­al is­sues re­main at the Mount Hope Women’s Hos­pi­tal.

He said the NCRHA was ad­dress­ing those is­sues as part of its wider pro­gramme of im­prove­ments across the re­gion.