Petrina Francis, Staff Reporter
Dr. Santosh Kulkarni, senior lecturer in the Department of Obstetrics/Gynaecology at the University of the West Indies (front), listens keenly to discussions by members of the press and the Medical Association of Jamaica (MAJ) at a press conference to describe the appalling conditions at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital (VJH). Looking on are Dr. Lloyd Goldson, consultant obstetrics/gynaecologist at the VJH (middle) and Dr. Douglas McDonald, medical doctor at VJH. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer
Dr. Douglas McDonald, medical doctor at Victoria Jubilee Hospital (VJH), Kingston, yesterday painted a grim picture of the conditions at the facility, claiming that the situation has passed being bad and is now "smelling."
Contamination of the operating theatres with roaches, bird droppings and flies, malfunctioning elevators, a shortage of nurses, a shortage of bed linen and dysfunctional air conditioning units are some of the problems doctors and patients have to grapple with on a daily basis.
"The situation is bad. It is now beginning to smell. The situation is bad, it is rotten and something needs to be done quickly to address this whole problem," Dr. McDonald declared yesterday during a press conference organised by the Medical Association of Jamaica (MAJ).
Dr. McDonald pointed out that the operating theatres at the biggest maternity hospital in the English-speaking Caribbean are located on the third floor of the six-storey new wing and the elevator is needed because the stairway is very narrow and cannot accommodate the stretchers.
However, the elevator has been malfunctioning for the past 26 years.
According to Dr. McDonald, in some instances, doctors have to walk patients to the operating theatre and emergency cases that are taken to the theatre cannot go back to the ward.
Promise to repair
The Ministry of Health has since promised to repair the elevators in six months.
"We are not able to offer quality care to our patients (and) in the interim, patients continue to suffer because their surgeries are being cancelled," Dr. McDonald said.
Another major problem Dr. McDonald highlighted was the malfunctioning of the Central Sterility Supply Department (CSSD), which sterilises equipment for both the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) and the Victoria Jubilee Hospital.
He pointed out that the plant is old and breaks down frequently. According to Dr. McDonald, the present waiting time for gynaecological operations is one year or more. "That does not speak well for patients (who have cancer) because by the time they make it to the list the cancers have spread and there is very little we can do about it," he told journalists.
Dr. John Hall, immediate past president of the MAJ described the situation as "institutionalising inefficiency".
This, he said, was "just something we cannot tolerate. It speaks to a consistent failure of management that is unequivocal".
He noted that the regional authorities is a failing system and urged the Government to dismantle the regional health systems.
"They are a menace to the delivery of good health service, they are a costly bureaucracy who are not delivering and simultaneously creating a budgetary block to the delivery of appropriate health care of the doctors so trained to do," Dr. Hall said.
Reports surfaced last weekend that a 41-year-old woman lost her baby as plans for a Caesarian section to deliver her child, was put off three times due to a malfunctioning autoclave.
The Ministry of Health has since ordered an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of the baby. Attorney-at-law, Ethlyn Norton-Coke has been appointed to investigate whether the child died of natural or clinical causes.
