Despite challenges, GPHC is a model institution – Health Minister

Feb 24, 2010 News

The notion that people die in hospitals all over the world was emphasised recently by Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy even as he underscored that deaths occurring at local public health facilities do not in any way indicate that a poor service is being offered.
The Minister’s articulations were in fact mainly centered on the operation of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) during the budget debate.
“We wish we could promise that we will have no deaths. But the fact is that people die in hospitals all over the world.”
According to the Minister, in order to rate the actual performance of the public health facility, efforts must first be made to look at the overall picture and not a single case or a few cases. In essence, he noted that a comparison should be made with similar size hospitals.
And there is an ever-growing need to look at the resources available locally, the Minister stressed, as he focused his attention to the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) Shadow Minister of Health, Dr George Norton.
“We need to look at the resources we have. That is the kind of work you need to do, Dr. Norton, with all due respect, if you are going to come here or if you are going to condemn your colleagues, your fellow administrators, or if you want to be Minister of Health. I wish we could eliminate some of the problems that sometimes arise.”
I am not consoled when something arises, where in retrospect we know we could have done better. These times have not permitted me to acknowledge the tremendous work being done at the GPHC, and for which you too are very proud of. And even though the decision is not mine, I know when you retire there is still a place for you at the GPHC.”
The fact, according to Minister, is that the GPHC has made remarkable progress in meeting its mandate for tertiary care, training and research. He highlighted that the hospital admitted more than 30,000 patients last year, with outpatient visits amounting to more than 300,000 visits. In fact there were almost 10,000 surgeries done at the GPHC last year in addition to the almost 7,000 babies born at the facility of which about 15 percent were done through Caesarean Section. According to the Minister, there is no hospital in the Caribbean that has to face such a heavy workload.
The GPHC, he said, has introduced modern techniques as part of efforts to expand, modernise and improve quality of its services. Among these, he listed surgical techniques that require no open cut, routine application of Phaco-Emulsification surgery for cataracts, laparoscopic surgery for gall bladder, and endoluminal lithotripsy for renal stones.
He further noted that a Centre for Excellence in Diabetic Care has been established which provides a modern Foot Care Programme that will benefit this year from a Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) grant.
“We have trained 68 persons in inter-professional wound care and this has resulted in a 44 percent reduction of amputation in our hospitals.” In terms of cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment, significant advancement has been made at the public hospital, the Minister added.
As such, all forms of treatment, including surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are available to patients. More than 500 cancer survivors, he disclosed, have benefited from one or all of these modalities of treatment in the last three years.
Additionally, a national cervical cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment programme has been introduced through which more than 5,000 women of reproductive age have already been examined.

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Despite challenges, GPHC is a model institution – Health Minister

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