Our health care system has failed us

Mar 14, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
The SN and Kaieteur News articles on the West Demerara Hospital were a clear indication that the PPP and the Jagdeo Government has failed in its promise to the people.
If there is anything they could have learnt from Dr Jagan was his social compact with the people, where he was committed to enhancing their access to the best health facilities and the best education facility.
Today we have patients sleeping in shifts on hospital beds, students who are failing their exams being promoted and the nurses suffering dog bites in the hospital compound.
But that is not all. If one is to read the articles and look carefully at the pictures, they will agree with my opening that the PPP has failed the people:
In the PPP’s 2006 manifesto they told the people that health is a fundamental social right. Thus they promised to:-
1. To provide patients and health workers with comfortable environment and to ensure the delivery of modern health care services.
2. Provide easy access to quality health care to every citizen.
They made many other promises like reducing maternal mortality etc., but we the people have had enough of this hypocrisy.
For the education of the PPP leaders, “comfortable environment” means – happy, calm, at ease, relaxed environment.
President Bharrat Jagdeo will be living in a comfortable environment in his $300 million house, but look at the pictures in the articles I highlighted; do any of them look comfortable? Further the word quality again for the education of the PPP leaders, mean excellent, superior.
Do any of those environment look of a superior nature or of a high quality. Just go to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Barbados and see what a quality health care system is.
Stop deceiving the people; call a spade a spade. Accept the facts even if it means the gravy train ride for you personally will come to an end. You are human beings, you have a conscious, enough is enough.
I was fortunate to secure a hard copy of the AFC Action Plan and those people have called a spade a spade. They accepted that billions of dollars were spent by the PPP on the health care system, but they recognise that the Health Care System still continues to grossly under-deliver for the Guyanese people.
The AFC made it clear that too much money continue to be spent on the bureaucracy and shady procurement contracts.
This is the fundamental reason why nurses continue to work in such atrocious condition and patients have to exist in such appalling setting.
What I was most excited about by the AFC is their commitment to introduce a Patient Bill of Right. Wala! Eureka!
The AFC commits to conduct regular health audits and patient feedback and host public discussions on the findings of the health audits and take firm action of the feedback provided.
The AFC promises to provide doctors and nurses with incentives such as low income home loans and I would like to ask the AFC to provide all nurses in a phased basis starting with the longer service nurses with free house lots.
There is no doubt that the PPP and the PNC had their time and they threw it away. It is time for the Guyanese people to make the right turn and partner with the AFC in building a new Guyana.
Suraj Chowtie

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