Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­bag­o­ni­ans are be­ing urged to re­main calm as the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal con­tin­ues to op­er­ate in emer­gency mode due to a surge in ad­mis­sions that has left its med­ical and sur­gi­cal wards full.

The To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (TRHA) de­clared the hos­pi­tal’s emer­gency sta­tus on Tues­day night. The mea­sures will re­main in place for at least 48 hours.

“Don’t pan­ic,” Sec­re­tary of Health Dr Faith Breb­nor told Guardian Me­dia in an in­ter­view. “We have an up­surge in the num­ber of peo­ple com­ing in, but they seem to be sick­er, which means they need to be hos­pi­talised.”

She ex­plained that pa­tients are stay­ing longer than usu­al, leav­ing few­er beds avail­able for new ad­mis­sions. Ac­cord­ing to the TRHA, 13 pa­tients were wait­ing to be ad­mit­ted through the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency (A&E) De­part­ment.

“To ease the pres­sure, we’ve agreed to stop non-es­sen­tial ser­vices,” Breb­nor said. “So if you were sched­uled for an elec­tive surgery, we’re ask­ing you to wait a week or two be­cause we sim­ply don’t have the space right now.”

Al­though she in­sist­ed there was no need for pan­ic, Breb­nor ac­knowl­edged the strain on the health sys­tem.

“We have high rates of ad­mis­sions and peo­ple in A&E who can’t be ad­mit­ted right away. That’s stress­ful—for staff and for pa­tients.”

While To­ba­go has ex­pe­ri­enced pe­ri­ods of high ad­mis­sions in the past, this is the first time emer­gency mode has been de­clared pub­licly. Breb­nor said trans­paren­cy is key.

“Giv­en the size of To­ba­go, it’s bet­ter for us to let peo­ple know what’s hap­pen­ing so the pub­lic can make in­formed de­ci­sions.”

As part of the emer­gency mea­sures, the TRHA has sus­pend­ed all elec­tive surg­eries un­til fur­ther no­tice and is urg­ing peo­ple with mi­nor ail­ments to avoid A&E if pos­si­ble.

“In­stead of flock­ing to Sig­nal Hill, see if you can get help at an­oth­er health fa­cil­i­ty—and on­ly go to Sig­nal Hill if it’s ab­solute­ly crit­i­cal,” Breb­nor ad­vised.

She al­so not­ed that To­ba­go’s lim­it­ed hos­pi­tal ca­pac­i­ty high­lights the need to ex­pand health in­fra­struc­ture.

“We ac­tu­al­ly came from a hos­pi­tal that was larg­er in terms of bed size. Now that the fa­cil­i­ty is small­er, I’ve tasked the TRHA with ex­plor­ing how we can im­prove this. Do we need to ex­pand the hos­pi­tal? What ex­act­ly should we do?”

Breb­nor added that the Di­vi­sion of Health is work­ing to strength­en pri­ma­ry health­care ser­vices to pre­vent ill­ness­es and re­duce fu­ture hos­pi­tal ad­mis­sions.

“We’re try­ing to re­design how we pro­vide pri­ma­ry health­care ser­vices and im­prove health cen­tres so we can reach more peo­ple and keep them out of hos­pi­tal.”

Mean­while, Pres­i­dent of the T&T Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion, Idi Stew­art, voiced his sup­port for the TRHA’s de­ci­sion, say­ing To­ba­go has tak­en a step that oth­er Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties (RHAs) of­ten avoid.

“The con­cept of hos­pi­tals over­flow­ing—that’s nor­mal, un­for­tu­nate­ly, in Trinidad and To­ba­go. It hap­pens every day,” he said.

He praised Breb­nor for act­ing de­ci­sive­ly. “We com­mend the Sec­re­tary of Health for is­su­ing such a no­tice. It’s proac­tive and sig­nals that she’s seen the prob­lem and is try­ing to ad­dress it com­pre­hen­sive­ly.”

How­ev­er, Stew­art high­light­ed per­sis­tent chal­lenges faced by nurs­ing staff.

“Nurs­ing and mid­wifery per­son­nel are not paid for over­time work,” he said. “It’s iron­ic that with this in­creas­ing de­mand, the au­thor­i­ties don’t see it fit to at least make nurs­ing and mid­wifery staff per­ma­nent­ly em­ployed.”

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Health con­firmed that there have been no sim­i­lar surges at health fa­cil­i­ties in Trinidad’s cen­tral dis­trict.

“To­ba­go’s to­tal bed ca­pac­i­ty stands at 130, and as such, fluc­tu­a­tions in oc­cu­pan­cy can oc­cur,” the min­istry not­ed.

The min­istry said it re­mains in close con­tact with all RHAs and will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion in To­ba­go.