The grass is not greener

And the quest for profit – however useful it may be in theory in open industry – will result in corners being cut when it comes to quality.

We also need the State to provide healthcare due to our diminishing purchasing power, a fact partially brought about by inflation and the fact that we do not really have a living wage. But very often, when citizens are given the choice between accessing healthcare in the private sector and the public sector they come to a rude awakening. Moving from the private sector to the free hospitals, they sometimes find that the grass is not greener on the other side.

A small example. A person wishing to get an HIV test in the public sector can walk into a health centre.

However, that person then has to find someone willing to take his or her query for instructions in relation to the test; is often turned off when told they need to present ID (because the Ministry of Health tracks all HIV/AIDS statistics closely); and is often informed they must come in on certain days at certain times. This is certainly the case at the Oxford Street Health Centre in Port of Spain.

Staff in these facilities are often discourteous, they do not communicate with tact or sensitivity given that health issues are involved, and ground staff such as cleaners appear to be none the wiser that they are working at a health centre, berating people for walking on newly- mopped floors, issuing threats and intimidation, being rude and uncaring of the fact that a person who walks into such a health centre is likely to be ill.

Small things add up anywhere.

In a healthcare environment, they can be disastrously discouraging and fatal. The issue surrounding the death of 62-year-old Christopher Phillip on the lawn of the Port of Spain General Hospital is not whether the Ministry of Health is at fault but rather whether lessons can be learned by the hospital and its administrators going forward.

A ministry report has found all protocols were observed, though 12 hours are unaccounted for outside the hospital. The cause of death also has to be corroborated and questions about Phillip’s state of mind answered.

Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh is correct to some extent in saying no one can force someone to stay in a hospital. But the State and officials do have powers under law to detain a person in a public place for their own safety if that person appears to be mentally distressed.

However, we do not even need to come to the fraught question of the law and State liability. What this incident shows is the fact that our hospitals simply do not have the resources they need to offer sophisticated, high-quality service at the point of entry.

We are not talking about holding a man down in handcuffs until a doctor comes to see him. We are talking about customer service that is astute, that anticipates the issue at hand, that is persuasive and that knows how to elicit the right response from people who are under distress.

Every person walking into a hospital, barring perhaps staff, has some reason to be under stress.

How do our institutions respond? Do they have enough staff to cope? Sadly, some staff respond by being negligent, disinterested, hoggish, inarticulate.

Sometimes service is excellent, we do not doubt. But too often there are allegations, like those in Phillip’s case, of misuse of brute force by guards (the ministry’s report contradicts these initial accounts on social media).

The ministry may not be directly responsible. But all government administrations (those in the past and those to come) have a solemn duty to do their best to improve this appalling healthcare system.