The horror stories of the Georgetown Hospital are unbelievable

Jan 22, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I refer to the editorial in Kaieteur News for Saturday, Jan 21, 12 on the Georgetown Hospital. What the editorial observed on the A&E section of the hospital is the tip of the iceberg.
The Georgetown Hospital is a caricature for a medical institution. Furthermore, a majority of its doctors are insensitive to human suffering and should not be in the medical profession. I would suggest that now the opposition is in the majority in Parliament, it should commission a high-level inquiry into how this place functions
I have heard and seen for myself some horror stories at that place. Last week, I wrote about a heart patient being denied his tablets by a doctor who simply refused to write a prescription.
On approaching this woman, her first reflex was one of annoyance. She didn’t even listen to what we had to say. This is the attitude of some doctors at that hospital. They treat patients and their families like dogs. It is time this nonsense at the Georgetown Hospital comes to an end
I am under no illusion that the doctor I wrote about in the mistreatment of a heart patient will be investigated. Politics will obviously come in. Look who made the complaint – Freddie Kissoon.
Why should we listen to him? I am sure the contents of the KN editorial will be ignored. Look who is criticizing the hospital – a newspaper that is always picking on the shortcomings of the Government
In the editorial, it was mentioned that you shouldn’t go to A&E if your condition is minor ; instead, you should visit the out-patient sections. If the hospital authorities said so they are not being straight with the public.
There is no part of the Georgetown Hospital you can visit in case of a minor emergency and see a doctor. In all those sections, they operate with an appointment system. You cannot walk in and see a doctor. You have to go to A&E, then, A&E would send you to the particular out-patient department.
Here is how it works. You have a stomach pain. It could be acid reflux. You cannot go to out patient and see a doctor. Out patient will end you to A&E. To avoid criticism of A&E, the hospital is promulgating the fiction that people with minor afflictions shouldn’t go to A&E but should visit an out patients section.
What they do not tell us is that the hospital does not offer that type of facility. Media people would know this more than other members of the public because we have investigated the workings of the hospital
But when you go to out-patient, you are running from the coffin into the jumbie. Go visit the out-patient departments of the Georgetown Hospital any day. The horror stories are identical to A&E
Here are some of those horror stories that wouldn’t happen in another country. I took my nephew to a doctor early in the morning. After being examined, he was sent for lab tests and X-rays.
Of course no one needs to tell you that when you visit those departments, you are not coming out for hours, especially the X-ray unit.  At 14. 00 hours, my nephew got through. When he returned, the doctor was gone. There wasn’t any paper work to tell us what to do next.
The doctor simply walked away from this patient without even a bureaucratic note on what to do afterwards. We had no idea what to do next. Or who to see next. The fact is those doctors know that it takes hours to get through at the labs and at X-ray. So if he knows he was leaving at midday, why see my nephew in the first place?
I called the doctor and asked him how he could leave my nephew in limbo like that. His explanation was that on initial examination, he knew there were no serious factors involved.
But can you tell that from a mere examination? Isn’t modern medicine about technology and machines? What if the tests had showed a serious defect? But that is the way Georgetown Hospital functions. Here is another episode that will give you a stroke
A&E sent my nephew to the POP room after his leg was crushed in an accident. The doctor at A&E gave me three prescriptions to take to the pharmacy while they wheeled my nephew into the POP room to be plastered up.
The three prescriptions were for the plaster of Paris, clips and bandage. The line was terribly long. When I got through, after an hour, naturally I went to the POP room. The technician was leaving to go to the wards. He said he cannot just sit and wait while he is needed elsewhere.
The point is the POP room does not have the materials to put a limb in plaster. All the stuff you have to collect from the pharmacy. I am contending that in no other hospital that would happen. It is stupid, senseless and downright asinine.
Finally, the Georgetown Hospital has a new system. Of course in this new dispensation, patients are treated as mere animals. In the medical wing, where there are all sorts of specialized departments, each patient is surrounded by about ten UG medical students and the doctor teaches them.
This increases the waiting period by hours. But it also does away with doctor-patient privacy. I was going to take an examination with Dr. Doobay.
But when I learnt that ten UG students will be with me, I declined and went to a private hospital. Tragically, the politicians that run the Georgetown Hospital into the ground was reelected last November to continue the mess
Frederick Kissoon

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