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- “I prefer to go home and die than go to OKEU?”
- “What alternate Universe are we existing in that priorities are this skewed?”
- “We reiterate you need to STEP UP or STEP OUT!”
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By Caribbean News Global contributor
RODNEY BAY, St Lucia – In a leaked letter to chairperson of the board of directors Millennium Heights Medical Complex, the St Lucia Medical and Dental Association (SLMDA), president, Dr Merle Clarke scold the healthcare system.
SLMDA president Dr Clarke letter emphasised:
“The problems are truly too numerous to quantify but we will attempt to highlight the most salient points coming out of a meeting of the consultant body.
“The consensus of the physician body is that the board of directors, ostensibly tasked with drafting policy to allow for the efficient running of the hospital, has failed miserably in said task.
“How are we to manage diabetes and its complications without glucometers to monitor blood sugars? Are you aware that physicians have had to bring in their own supplies to ensure that patients with Diabetic Ketoacidosis (a life-threatening complication of Diabetes) are monitored and managed? How are physicians expected to make critical life and death decisions in a patient with presumed Myocardial Infarct (Heart Attack) without basic things like ECGs (whether it be due to lack of ERe paper or not enough functioning ECC• machines) or Cardiac biomarkers (Troponin)?
“How are physicians expected to treat life-threatening illnesses without the basic drugs that allow us to provide standard-of-care management?
“Be assured that there is no member of the board that is in any way qualified enough in the field of ethics to make a determination to overturn a decision made by trained and experienced persons in the field, as are those who form the ethics committee of the MDC.
“Then there is the chronic issue of lack of bed space that every Saint Lucian knows about. I recall ill patients being managed in chairs, emergency room physicians with no space to manoeuvre or treat patients. How is resolving that problem not a major priority?
“Even more concerning is the fact that when the emergency room is housing upwards of 30 to 40 admitted patients (an all too common scenario) there is no place to examine patients coming in with emergencies.
“When is a definitive and sustainable solution to prevent premature loss of life going to be proposed? Or is the board satisfied with the blame being placed squarely at the feet of the inordinately convenient scapegoats, the clinical staff?
“Is the board at all concerned about the fact that four senior consultants and multiple junior physicians have resigned over the last few months? Or about the continued mass migration of our beloved nurses? What measures have been put in place to halt this exodus of clinical staff?
“The citizens of Saint Lucia deserve better,” said SLMDA president Clarke. And are you aware, “ when referring are uttering the heart-wrenching words: “I prefer to go home and die than go to OKEU?”
The scolding is of no surprise but rather late to the multiple articles published by Caribbean News Global (CNG), much to the displeasure of the government of the day, and “plausible willful blindness” to the obvious.
A quick keyword search on CNG (healthcare St Lucia) will refresh the minds of the elapsed.
- https://caribbeannewsglobal.com/the-increasing-decay-of-healthcare-in-st-lucia/
- https://caribbeannewsglobal.com/st-lucia-attends-wha77-amidst-shortage-of-health-supplies-patient-care-cows-and-goats-storm-st-jude-hospital/
- https://caribbeannewsglobal.com/st-lucians-freak-out-on-crime-healthcare-and-miscommunication/
- https://caribbeannewsglobal.com/st-lucias-healthcare-and-nic-gold-card-something-to-aspire/
- https://caribbeannewsglobal.com/st-lucias-public-health-board-moh-warrants-an-autopsy/
