A measured judgment
Editorial
In a letter in our Sunday paper Dr Madan Rambaran, the Director of Medical Services at the Georgetown Public Hospital, responded to a scathing letter from Ms Linda Peake, a frequent visitor to Guyana, who had accompanied a friend to the hospital to have a baby, had not been allowed to visit the labour room while her friend was having the baby and bitterly criticised the crude behaviour of the nurses to which she had been subjected. Dr Rambaran explained that the hospital had not reached the stage where it can accommodate relatives in the labour room to witness deliveries. One of the reasons for this, apparently, is that there is not a sufficient degree of privacy. He said this had been explained to Ms Peake but he did not seek to justify the behaviour she complained of. He frankly admitted that health sector workers need to improve what he described as workplace sensitivity. Dr Rambaran noted that the hospital had made several improvements since it had been given semi-autonomous status. These had been listed in an earlier letter by Dr. Hughley Hanoman and included the opening of a new pathology laboratory after a lapse of 22 years, the extension of medical outpatient opening hours to facilitate working people and children, a shorter waiting time for cold surgery although there was a shortage of anaesthetists, and new maternity and gynaecology units. He also pointed out that the Chairman of the Management Committee, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, had publicly admitted that the behaviour and attitudes of some of the employees was a matter for concern and he said that efforts were being made by a programme of education, training, rules and discipline to deal with this. Dr Rambaran's main point was that a blanket condemnation of the hospital was not justified as other critics had suggested. There had been some improvements but many severe problems remained. One of these problems surely is that the staff, including senior skilled and highly trained staff, are grossly underpaid. It is therefore hard to retain people, especially when they are being solicited by Botswana and hospitals in other countries. There is therefore a shortage of staff in key areas. Dr Rambaran admits this, he says "the hospital cannot meet the demands made on it and this is especially true of the maternity unit. At present the hospital is severely limited in the availability of nurses in general and midwives in particular. We therefore find it difficult to provide a minimum nursing coverage on the maternity unit at all times". How can one deal with this? The problem of low pay undergirds so many of the problems in our society. We continue to pay a huge price for the collapse of the economy in the seventies and eighties. The low salaries demotivate people, particularly skilled staff who have a market value abroad. The board of the hospital will have to face this difficult problem at some stage or many of their efforts will be in vain.
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