When will this stinking unhealthy situation end?

Aug 13, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
As we are all aware prevention is better than cure, and as such even though the public hospitals have good doctors and all necessary medicine it is still better to stay healthy and avoid those hospitals
In the circumstances I have been trying for years to get my surroundings clean so that my grandchildren and other members of my household can stay healthy, but all those I approached for assistance have ignored me.
You see next door to my home in Grove E.B.D. is a lumber yard so the animal drawn vehicles (horse carts) will park in front of my house some times as much as half dozen and the animals will urinate and defecate and create a most unhealthy situation and this is continuous .
I spoke to the local public health officer, he did nothing about the matter, then on the 24th of September 2008, I went to the Ministry of Health to see Dr. Bheri Ramsarran and was advised by a secretary to see Dr. Ashok Sookdeo the head of the environmental agency of that ministry and so I went to Dr. Sookdeo and complained.
As far as I am aware Sookdeo did nothing about my grievance so the unhealthy situation continues.
As early as the 10th of August 2006 the people of my neighbourhood wrote a letter to the SN on this stinking affair hoping to attract the attention of the health authorities.
In the letter the neighbours pointed out clearly they are not against the lumber yard, but that the horse carts can go to the old road between Grove and Craig Good Success, one corner away, park there and go one by one to uplift lumber as called. On the 9th of October 2009 I met Dr. Bheri Ramsarran at the M.E.N anger management symposium at the Pegasus and mentioned this matter to him and he gave me his card and advised me to send him an email.
In June 2010 I sent a letter to head of the Environmental Protection Agency (email it to Dr. Bheri ) on this said matter, it was received and signed for by someone at the EPA One month later not hearing anything nor seeing any action I called the EPA and was put to speak to a female.
This female informed me my complaint is not an issue for the EPA.
Mr. Editor as I write this letter, the stinking unhealthy situation continues and apparently no one in authority cares.
Wendell P. George

Two more countries ban CP

Dear Editor,
Two more countries have banned all forms of Corporal Punishment (CP) of children: Tunisia, in North Africa, on July 26, 2010 and Poland, in Eastern Europe, on August 1, 2010, bringing the total number of countries that have banished this barbarity to the dustbin of history to 28.  (http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org/pages/frame.html)
In the 25 years from 1979 to 2004, 14 nations achieved full prohibition of corporal punishment, while in the last six years, the total has doubled.
Corporal Punishment in schools has been abolished in 110 countries, including 37 European states, 21 African nations, China and India.
M. Xiu Quan Balgobind-Hackett

The GPHC is not what you think

Dear Editor,
Kindly permit me the use of your newspaper to share with the citizens of Guyana an amazing discovery that I have made.
Until recently I was one of those good Guyanese who purposed to myself, that under no circumstance would I allow myself to be a patient at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).
I told myself that if perhaps I should meet with some unfortunate incident on the road and in being assisted I was to be taken to GHPC, then as soon as I was able to, I would move heaven and earth to get myself out of there and into a private hospital.
In fact, after the many negative things reported in the media about this institution I had it fixed in my mind that I wouldn’t even take my pet to that hospital unless I was sure I wanted it dead.
Well, Mr. Editor, at the writing of this letter, it would have been one week and three days since I met with an accident on the road and yes I had to be assisted in getting to hospital and yes to my horror I was taken to, you guessed it, the GPHC. This is where my amazing discovery began.
No sooner had the car pulled up to the entrance of the accident and emergency section there was an attendant at the car door with a wheel chair to whisk me away to the emergency room.
The doctors and nurses immediately went to work on my injuries. They spoke kindly to me to calm my hysterics, while doing all they could to alleviate my pain faster than immediate and sooner than just now.
Mr. Editor, the media is filled with a lot of negativity about this institution and its staff and some of it is probably deserved. It is well publicized that overtime some members of the public may have had traumatic encounters with some members and staff at the said institution.
While I’m not privy to all the possible reasons for such, nor am I in agreement with it, there is something I wish to bring to the attention of the hospital administration. It is the issue of inadequate staffing at the hospital.
I have witnessed instances where this shortage of nurses for a shift resulted in added strain for the nurses who were on duty.
How can a patient be adequately attended to in a situation where there are four nurses to 15 patients? The ‘strauma’ (stress and drama) further increase for the nurses by the attitude of some patients. I personally witnessed an incident where it took all the nurses (six of them) to restrain an 85- year-old woman, 5ft, less than 100 lbs, who kicked, cuss, spat and scratched them.
In spite of all this, there are nurses, doctors, attendants and technicians who on a daily basis save lives and help people at this hospital.
And so it is to them I wish to say heart felt thank you, what you do matters and make a difference.
To the attendants who carried me on the stretcher to and from surgery, and the X-ray department, thank you for your kind and soothing words and for not dropping me.
My gratitude is also extended to: Doctors: Ramnauth, Garfield, Watson, France, Perreira, Armstrong, and Chen. Also Nurses: Greene, Dass, Hicks, Felix, P. James, Dublin, Stanton, Munroe and D. James.
Mrs. Candice Rayside-Pyle

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