Should I join the fight with the healthcare workers to get a better salary?

Oct 12, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
I am writing this letter to highlight the depth of unprofessional practices that I experienced and observed at the Industry Health Center on Friday 9th 2020.
I went with my wife to this public facility as she was asked to return with her husband by the doctor (name provided).
We got to this facility at 12:15PM and waited until 1:00PM seeing that the staff was on lunchbreak. As we waited others came in after us. At 1:00PM a healthcare personnel dressed in a violet scrub came and start asking people to come in to be “clerked up”.
What shocked me first is when the said health personnel asked, in the presence of all who sat waiting “is who get the diarrhoea and vomiting?”, as this young woman stood, many eyes were fastened on her butt maybe to see if any signs of her troubles will show (so unprofessional).
As one person went in after another those that waited heard from time to time what were their complaints – from belly pain to foot issues and then from those that had possible coronavirus symptoms. The chain link fence between the nurse’s questions and those that wait for medical attention could not hold the answers that flew out the patients’ lips.
Now it was our turn as, we approached, the security guard told me that I had to let my wife go in alone since, according to him, “she can speak for herself”. I was shocked what made him think I had intentions speaking from her? I don’t know what made him think that the situation did not concern me, I don’t know. As a law-abiding citizen I walked back to my seat and sat quietly.
Upon the question asked by the healthcare personnel (dressed in violet) to my wife as to why she has come today, my wife not wanting to make her case public answered articulately using medical terms.
She was also asked to sit outside and wait while she called everyone else to go see that specific doctor or another except us, even those that came long after went in before.
The security guard seeing what was happening asked why she was allowing others to go in before who came in after ‘these people’. She said, “I don’t have time for nonsense” and she then mumbled along.
Many times after she was asked by other staff about these two people who came to speak to the doctor (name provided). She said that “their case is not important”. She kept saying too, “don’t worry with them” and continued to call others in a less than professional tone.
At the hour of 2:00PM after many other staffers kept asking the healthcare worker dressed in violet about these two people she then decided to call back down a man that came way after us and send up my wife alone.
After sitting outside for some time, my wife came down from the doctor’s office to call me up. The doctor then asked for my card that was supposed to be clerked up, at 2:15pm. The nurses then responded that the place is already “washed up” and somebody gone that was supposed to do it.
The nice doctor said to me, “I can’t do much because you need to be clerked up but return on Monday and I’ll see you properly.” She tried her best but could not do much.
I am a public servant and I too am a frontline worker in these COVID times to even get time off was difficult and to sit there to witness this level of unprofessionalism, not only meted out to me but others was alarming . We did not get any medical attention because a guard turned me back and a healthcare worker (who is obviously not a doctor) thought that our case was not important.
From broken wheelchairs, to a lack of patients’ privacy, and a total disregard for the health concerns of citizens, the questions I must ask are: ‘Should I join the fight with the healthcare workers to get a better salary? Should I use my voice to call for better working conditions when I have witness them use their little power to deny us the right to medical assistance? Should I still work my all for the Guyanese people as a public servant and frontline worker or should I leave this country behind? Is their hope for GUYANA?’

Frustrated Citizen

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