West Demerara Regional Hospital dubbed a death zone….

Jul 03, 2012 News

…employees say Govt has turned a blind-eye
Despite increasing complaints of the worsening state of the West Demerara Regional Hospital for the past seven months, staff at the facility yesterday accused the government of turning a blind eye.

A section of the Emergency Room

Earlier this month, this newspaper had carried an article on the rundown state of the hospital, and made numerous attempts to contact Minister of Health, Bheri Ramsaran and the hospital’s administrator, Bharrat Persaud but all the attempts were futile.
Staff members say they can no longer work under those conditions which now pose a threat to their lives.
When this publication visited the hospital yesterday, there were live wires hanging below the ceiling in various departments.
Staff said that patients sometimes enquired about the dilapidated state of the hospital, which at times, puts them in an uncomfortable position. “You imagine, patients come here with their relatives and see the hospital in this condition and then turn to us and ask us about it,” a nurse said.
“They don’t want us to speak with the media, but this is unbearable. The last time we published this, we thought something would have been done to improve the situation here but instead nothing was done,” a staff complained.
Staff members are now worried about their safety and the safety of patients. Some of them described the hospital as a “death zone.”
Kaieteur News understands that the hospital has been in this condition for the longest while.
At present, the Emergency Room (ER) is a “dancehall,” the workers stated. The air conditioning unit (AC) was replaced with two fans, both of which have no protective cover. There are no dividers to separate patients while the Records Department is “out of order”. Patients’ cards were packed in boxes and stored in the abandoned room.