Fyzabad MP laments poor health care at Sando hospital

“Is this going to be another Biche High School project?” he asked at the UNC’s Monday Night Forum meeting at the Tulsa Trace Hindu Primary School.

“The question is why aren’t the 230 beds at the Couva Children’s Hospital being utilised but you have bed shortages all over the place in the other hospitals? What is the state of this public/private partnership that they talking about for so long ?” Several supporters held aloft placards which read “Open up the children’s hospital” and “had enough of pain.” Bodoe said 22 months after the Dr Keith Rowley PNM administration assumed office, citizens were once more subject to “long waiting times at the Accident and Emergency department, long waiting times in the outpatient clinic and long waiting times for beds.” “I think that was supposed to be a thing of the past (but) bed shortages have come back,” he said, adding, “There are long waiting times for eye surgery, long waiting times for CT scans, ultrasound scans and for MRI scans.” Bodoe said the San Fernando General Hospital was also experiencing a shortage of a drug used to dilate eye pupils in preparation for eye exams.

He also alleged Biometry equipment, worth over one million dollars, was lying idle at the hospital because of a lack of specialist doctors.

“Vitreo-retinal surgery is a special kind of surgery. That equipment is present at the San Fernando hospital (and) they can’t find a doctor to be able to do that surgery,” he said, adding that type of surgery usually costs $30,000 at private clinics.

He said citizens have become immune to the non-performance by the government and have taken it upon themselves to fix potholes, in public roads, which had been left open by a public utility.

“And while I commend this type of citizens action, I also want to say it is the responsibility of the government of the day to do these jobs.” Also addressing the meeting was Oropouche West MP Vidia Gayadeen-Gopeesingh who lamented that over 250 doctors and a large number of nurses have been seeking employment in the public health sector without success.