The patients at the beleaguered San Fernando General Hospital (SFGH) continue to experience horrors and terrors in the Emergency Department (ED) of that hospital because of the failure of the Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh, the Board and the executive team of the SWRHA to put in place proper, efficient and effective management systems to facilitate quality care to the patients who have no choice but to seek refuge in the nation’s public hospitals.
Take, for example, the trials and tribulations that a retired policeman, 81-year-old gentleman CL had to undergo when he was referred to the ED of the SFGH by doctors at the Couva District Health Facility on July 20.
His wife, well aware of the unsolved horrendous problems that continue to plague the SFGH, texted me at 9.36 am as follows: “Can I count on you to help him get a bed after a reasonable length of time, please?”
At 10.59 am on the said day, while at the ED of the SFGH, she texted, “We are at triage awaiting doctor to check him here.” Two and a half hours later, she texted saying, “Waiting for CT scan and ECG.”
Around 6 pm (seven hours following her first text to me at 10.59 am at the ED of the SFGH), she texted, “We are waiting so long; he hasn’t eaten for the day and is hungry.”
She did not know whom to call to find out what is the delay in her husband getting the requested CT scan, how soon he would be able to have the CT scan, when can he eat or drink. So, she kept in touch with me.
I then contacted the manager of the ED and asked her kind assistance for a customer relations officer to assist this old gentleman who is a long-standing renal patient of the SFGH and who was having rigors from the day before.
In fact, it was the manager of the ED, who informed me that there was a bit of a backlog for patients awaiting CT scans and that she would send a CRO to assist. And the CRO did indeed present herself to the patient and did offer to help to speed up things. The point to note here is that, without my intervention, what would have been the plight of this poor old man and his devoted and attentive wife?
How many of the 300 patients (and their relatives) who now attend the ED of the SFGH on a daily basis have to go through this kind of ordeal? Where are the systems to deal with this kind of dilemma? It seemed also that on the said night, according to what the wife told me, there was a shortage of attendants. At 7.42 pm that same night, the attorney-at-law texted to inform me that her husband had just got the CT scan. This patient had to wait many hours to obtain his CT scan because apparently only one CT scanner is currently working at the 750-bedded SFGH.
The Minister of Health and the SWRHA Board owe the public an explanation as to why the radiological services at the SFGH leave much to be desired. Will the SWRHA (which serves a catchment population of some 600,000 people) tell the country the truth why it takes to long to get a CT scan report in the ED at nights?
The reason is, that although three radiologists are being paid to be on call at nights, most of the time, at nights, only one radiologist is present at the workplace/on the floor to deal with the multitude of films that need to be reported on.
It is here that the medical director and director of Health are failing in their duty to ensure that radiologists who are being paid to be on call at nights, come out, put their shoulders to the wheel and help speed up the reporting of the CT scans, instead of staying at home and sleeping in their beds.
And where is the CEO in all of this? He, too, is a medical doctor and ought to know that delay in the reporting of the CT scans or any other radiological modality for that matter will result in longer stays for the patients in the ED which in turn exacerbates the overcrowding situation that has been a feature of the SFGH for ever so long.
As a former medical director of the SFGH, I used all my experience and knowledge to assist this patient. I had great difficulty finding out who was the consultant doctor on call that night for the ED but when I was able to find out who he was and to contact him, he was indeed very helpful and wonderful.
I pleaded also with the Nursing Administration to find a bed for this 81-year-old patient and the staff there liaised with bed management and a bed was found to house the patient on the nephrology ward.
The attorney-at-law sent me her final text, saying “Thanks a lot. Got home at 1am on July 21.”
A nightmare ended.