Health care system needs closer attention – Dr Harding

Jan 15, 2010 News

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By Sharmain Cornette

“If qualified human resources cannot be retained health care delivery cannot be guaranteed, no matter how many new buildings are commissioned,” said People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) Executive Member, Dr Faith Harding.
This opinion was expressed when the party held its weekly press briefing yesterday at its Congress Place, Sophia, headquarters. Dr. Harding asserted that sustained efforts by the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) in 2009 to undermine just and equitable health service has left the citizenry feeling insecure.
She alluded to a statement made by President Bharrat Jagdeo, early in December 2009, where he declared that the health sector budget has grown from $750M in 1992 to $12B, when he commissioned the new $1.8B Linden Hospital Complex in Region 10. At that very function, Dr. Harding recounted, the Minister of Health “vainly announced” that his Administration has almost entirely rebuilt and reconstructed the physical infrastructure of the health sector with brand new hospitals through a massive investment programme of the Government.
“In just three weeks after these bold declarations by the President and the Minister, Guyanese witnessed the tragedy of a deplorable state of health services at this very ‘state-of-the-art’ facility. The operating theatre at this new hospital, like most of the others around the country, we are told, malfunctioned and the lives of a 35-year-old mother of three and her unborn child were snuffed out.”
According to the PNCR executive member, it has become increasingly evident over the past 17 years, that the way health care is managed locally does not encourage the right care at the right time. She highlighted that people, especially women and children, are continually dying from unknown causes and cases deemed to be suspected negligence.
“At this newly commissioned hospital in Linden, because of a number of deaths already, a series of investigations have been launched. The headlines of the national newspapers and other news media, in the most recent weeks, declared: “Woman dies in childbirth – $$B Linden hospital theatre not working”; “West Demerara maternal death – Negligence Cited”; “Lethem Residents Blame Negligence for Baby’s Death”; and it goes on.”
Dr Harding further emphasised that the death of a Government Minister, after being admitted for injuries in an accident, has caused the Leader of the Opposition, followed by the President himself, to call for an investigation into the circumstances of that death which occurred at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).
“We are aware that our nation’s health care providers — doctors, nurses, technicians, technologists, and others — work hard to provide life-saving and life-improving care to us. However, the level of quality and efficiency of care provided across our nation is worrisome. While spending is high, our nation ranks horribly low in many areas of quality provision of health care.”
Various reports, Dr Harding said, have concluded that the current health care system is not making progress towards improving the quality of care. As such she underscored that the combination of high spending and appalling quality is unsustainable for a young and under-populated nation. As a result, she has deduced that “what we are witnessing is a health system that is a beautifully muscled chicken with its head cut off.”
According to her, hospital facilities, the nature of the one at Linden, should provide specialist care in four basic areas of health delivery, namely; obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, surgery and internal medicine.  This requires specialists in the areas to head and supervise all four of these areas, which Dr. Harding noted, are not available in Linden. She added that the Accident and Emergency Unit at the new hospital does not have on call staff that should be physically present at the hospital 24 hours per day.
The health sector under the Jagdeo regime, she observed, faces a variety of human resource problems, primarily an overall lack of personnel in key areas, which is worsened by high numbers of trained personnel leaving the sector.  And although a number of young medical interns have returned from Cuba, Dr Harding cautioned that they couldn’t be thrust into the system without first being certified for internship rotation. It is her belief that many of them have not been adequately given the required exposure to the volume of patients required or supervised by experienced superiors.  As a result, she opined that they are unable to perform on par with those who have done their internship in the only approved facility for such activities, the GPHC.
Compounding this situation, she opined, is the fact that qualified nursing staffers are leaving the health sector in droves, while the Minister of Health boasts that the regime is training large numbers annually. “What he does not tell the nation is what he is doing to retain the large numbers. If the qualified human resources cannot be retained, health care delivery cannot be guaranteed, no matter how many new buildings are commissioned.”
Furthermore, the disjointed human resource management in the health sector is resulting in a number of ethical issues arising among the personnel, Dr Harding added.  She said that all doctors should be required to take a course in medical ethics and law for registration, a move which is yet to be incorporated by the public health sector, even in the face of serious problems.
Dr. Harding emphasized that it is no secret that the quality and availability of essential services, such as health care, are a key measure of governance.  Such services, she noted, underpin the social contract between the government and citizens and, as such, are an indicator of the health of a society.
The Minister has stated, from time to time, that the health sector has numerous programmes of health care but has failed to inform the Guyanese public, on a regular basis, of the success and failures of these programs, Dr Harding said.

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