Wellness clinics to reduce patient load at hospitals, health centres - Minister Ramsammy

Wellness clinics to reduce patient load at hospitals, health centres – Minister Ramsammy

Feb 12, 2009 News

In wake of the realisation that several persons are turned away from accessing the services of hospitals and health centres because they are not sick enough, Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy has begun the immediate establishment of wellness clinics around the country.

Already the Minister said that a one-day wellness clinic has been started at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation so that citizens can have medical checkups.

“People meet me all over the place and tell me that they go to the hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department or one of the emergency services and they are told you are not sick, go home back.”

“I can understand that because our clinics are overwhelmed trying to take care of the sick and we don’t want them to wait while we take care of people who are healthy.

So we have to have special clinics that are around,” the Minister related.

According to him, there is an urgent need for health facilities to not only focus on curing or managing diseases but also to prevent diseases from even occurring.

As such he disclosed that “I have instructed the hospitals to begin the first of our wellness clinics. We need to start our wellness clinics at all of our hospitals and also at all of our major health centres.”

Minister Ramsammy pointed out, too, that since public health facilities are the people’s assets, they must be able to access services offered even if they are not sick.

“This is a paradigm shift because when I joined the health sector we use to say the less you come the better is the health system, meaning that because you are not sick you are not coming.”

However, the Minister noted that with the new trend, “We want people to come also when they are not sick because it will help us to keep them not sick for a longer time.”

Additionally, Minister Ramsammy disclosed that a clinic will be implemented at the Ministry of Health’s Brickdam head office where staffers and persons living in the neighbouring environs can access wellness care. “I am asking Dr Shamdeo Persaud (Chief Medical Officer) to make sure that it is working so that we can provide that wellness programme.”

The Minister, however, asserted that sick persons are still expected to visit the hospitals and health centres and only utilise the wellness programmes to do medical checkups to ensure that they are physically alright.