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May 21, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

There is an attitude problem at our public hospitals. The attitude of some health professionals in the emergency units of our public hospitals leaves much to be desired.
A few years ago, there was a very disturbing letter that appeared in print media.
A patient related his experience at the Emergency Unit at a Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.
According to the person concerned, the nurses were playing a game of tag while he was waiting to be treated. It is an all too familiar story that suggests a pattern of casualness, which should never be associated with Emergency Departments.
No one ever heard what came out of the investigation into that matter if indeed it was true or if it was in fact investigated.
One of the duties of medical administrators should be to thoroughly investigate all complaints. If a problem is reported, then the complaint needs to be investigated.
Depending on the outcome of that investigation, persons have to be held accountable. Unless this happens, the problems, if they do exist, will not go away.
What is required is not just explaining what happened, but also about taking corrective action. Every patient needs to be treated with importance and they need to understand why action was or was not being taken.
The explanation should be followed by corrective action. If there is a problem, then a solution has to found to that problem. This solution has to be implemented.
Someone has to be responsible for this implementation; someone has to be responsible also for monitoring the implementation and making an assessment of its success, because not everything that is implemented is a success.
Indeed, there is often a need to test solutions before these are formalised.
After explanation and correction, the next step involves holding to account those responsible for faults and negligence.
Doctors must never be made to feel that they can do no wrong. They must be held to the same standards as other professionals such as nurses.
There is a serious problem with Guyanese nurses. There are many excellent nurses, but there are far too many also whose attitude to their work is not what is expected of professionals.
This is one of the reasons why private hospitals are importing nurses on short-term contracts. They are importing these nurses not because local nurses are not sufficiently trained.
There is only one reason why private hospitals are recruiting nurses from overseas. That reason is attitude.
These recruits from overseas have a completely different approach to their work. There is hardly any casualness. They take their job seriously and work hard. They have a different attitude to their work. And this is why the private hospitals are being besieged by those who can afford to pay for medical care.
It is not that the public institutions do not have the equipment or qualified personnel. They do. In fact, they have more equipment and more qualified staff than the private hospitals.
The difference is in attitude. You are not going to find in any Emergency Room of any private hospital, a lackadaisical or casual approach to work. That is not going to happen at all.
And this is what the public is looking for, and those who can afford to pay are paying for this attitude.
Those who cannot afford private medical care have to be content with dealing with too many doctors that are supposed to be on call, but take a long time to arrive.
They have to deal with nurses who work as if they are doing you a favour. They have to deal with medical personnel who at any notice can walk out of the treatment room to take a phone call or a buy a soft drink.
If public health care is to be improved, this improvement does not start with getting better professionals or more modern equipment. It has to begin with a change of attitude.

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