Maxine Demetrius
“Our CT machine is overused and breaks down often, some of our equipment are obsolete – like the scanners and ECG machines, and our MRI machine has been non-functional for years,” lamented a nurse manager at the Kingston Public Hospital,as she spoke with Freedom Come Rain last Wednesday about the country’s ailing public health system.
This is an observation that was also made by health minister Dr. Christopher Tufton who has requested that the auditor general examine how certain medical equipment is serviced given complaints that the machines are breaking down regularly.
“The long-term solution, we have decided, is to engage in leasing arrangements of equipment within our hospital system,” informed Dr. Tufton at Thursday’s official launch of the ministry‘s Compassionate Care programme for the Cambridge Health Centre in St James.
“I am told that by now and early next year…we will be in a position to appoint or award, depending on the procurement process, entities that will place their equipment in the hospitals, maintain the equipment so the downtime becomes minimal, and the patient will get the convenience they deserve when they need an X-ray or a CT scan in the institution as opposed to having to travel outside of the institution,” he added.
This new approach will replace the current Enhancing Healthcare Delivery Product that was launched in 2019 as a public-private arrangement, wherein patients at the public hospitals were able to get their diagnostic tests done at private facilities, at the government’s expense in order to speed up their treatment protocol. However, that will now be terminated as the Minister says “it is quite clear that some people are doing far more tests than they probably need to.”
Diagnostic services is but one of the plethora of maladies afflicting Jamaica’s public healthcare system. According to the nurse manager, who wishes to remain anonymous, “While it is true that health care workers do need customer service training; what we would also like are honest, reliable, compassionate leaders who will heed to the cry of the medical staff for better working conditions and wages, modern and efficient equipment, modern beds and adequate bed space, and supplies, including medication for patients.”
A clinical nurse manager at the University Hospital of the West Indies had a raft of recommendations for the languishing system:
- Provide education and training for staff
- Reward and commend staff
- Partner with private institutions re bed space
- Build new hospitals
- Improve discharge planning, which is developing a plan for the patient that ensures that services required to support the continuity of care once the patient leaves the hospital are identified and available. It should involve relatives, guardians and caregivers. It allows for early awareness and preparation and thus decreases length of stay (frees up bed-space), re-admission, and mortality.
- Use monitoring and evaluation to hold staff more accountable.