THE patient load at the Plaisance Health Centre has increased by three-fold in the past two years, according to doctor-in-charge at the health centre, Dr. Kenneel Fingal.
Dr. Fingal disclosed that about five years ago, the health centre was barely seeing patients, owing to the significant difficulties that were being experienced there.
She disclosed that residents of the community had no confidence in the health centre, owing to several factors. She said because of the lack of confidence in the health centre’s ability to deliver excellent service, output was severely affected, resulting in many of the patients seeking services elsewhere.
“About five years ago, nobody really wanted to come to the Plaisance Health Centre as the reality is that the services being offered were very poor. As such, many of the residents went to the other health centres because they had no confidence in the staff here delivering services at a high and most importantly, confidential level. Those severely affected our numbers as the number of persons that sought health services here significantly dropped,” she said.
Dr. Fingal pointed out that services have increased significantly within the past two years. She said the increased level and quality of services being offered has helped rebuild confidence that members of the public had lost in some of the staff there.
“With the quality and standard of service continuing to increase, we are seeing our patient load tripping as more and more persons want to benefit from the services that we offer here. We have several persons who doesn’t fall within our catchment area coming here and is prepared to wait because they have heard about the level of service that we offer and want to benefit,” she stressed.
Dr. Fingal continued: “Over the past two years, we changed how services were being offered here. We changed the approach of how the staff treat and interact with the patients and members of the community, so that the public knows that we are here for them, we are here to assist and provide several services to them so together we have to work.”
PRIDE IN WORK
Dr. Fingal argued that part of their success is because she and her staff have been taking pride in the service that they offer. She said among the services being offered include the antenatal clinics on Mondays. Tuesdays have been reserved for chronic disease patients and Wednesdays and Fridays for child health clinic, the largest clinics that they see each week, with Thursday being used to alternate with early antenatal and newborns, family planning and the adolescent clinics.
She added that the health centre also offers a number of other services including EKG and ultrasound, mental health, among others. She disclosed that a number of major clinics in Georgetown are referring mental health and diabetic foot patients to their clinics. She revealed that because of their significant work, DFC and Mental Health Unit are urging several of their patients to maximise the services being offered.
“We usually do the 60 seconds diabetic foot screening and we would do patients dressings accordingly as we primarily co-manage the patients between here and the Diabetic Foot Centre. We have also noticed that because of our excellent results with `several of our diabetic patients’, DFC has been referring several patients to us even though they aren’t from our catchment area,” she said.
The doctor assigned at Plaisance noted that while some patients are in the habit of missing their clinic dates, her health centre does not send them away, as they are seen regardless of which day they turn up. She added that the staff would stress upon them the importance of keeping their appointed dates.
She pointed out that a number of additional services are being offered which include ECG. The Plaisance Health Centre caters for persons from Goedverwagting to Felicity on the East Coast of Demerara.
The health centre has a staff of 17 persons and Dr. Fingal is supported by two additional doctors.
