KINDLY permit me the use of your newspaper to share with the citizens of Guyana an amazing discovery that I have made. Up until recently I was one of those good Guyanese who purposed in myself that under no circumstance would I allow myself to be a patient at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. I told myself that if perhaps I should meet with some unfortunate incident on the road and should I be unable to get myself a hospital and in being assisted I was to be taken to GPHC, then as soon as I was able to I would move heaven and earth to get myself out of there and into a private hospital.
In fact, after the many negative things reported in the media about this institution I had it fixed in my mind that I wouldn’t even take my pet to that hospital unless I was sure I wanted it dead..
Well, Mr. Editor, at the writing of this letter, it would have been one week and three days since I met with an accident on the road and yes I had to be assisted in getting to hospital and yes to my horror I was taken to, you guessed it, Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. This is where my amazing discovery began. No sooner had the car pulled up to the entrance of the accident and emergency room there was an attendant at the car door with a wheel chair to whisk me away to the emergency room. The doctors and nurses immediately went to work on my injuries. They spoke kindly to me to calm my hysterics while doing all they could to alleviate my pain faster than immediate and sooner than just now.
Mr. Editor, the media is filled with a lot of negativity about this institution and its staff and some of it is probably deserved. It is well publicised that over time some members of the public may have had traumatic encounters with some members and staff at the said institution. While, I’m not privy to all the possible reasons for such nor am I in agreement with it, there is something I wish to bring to the attention of the hospital administration. It is the issue of inadequate staffing at the hospital. I have witnessed instances where this shortage of nurses for a shift resulted in added strain for the nurses who were on duty.
How can a patient be adequately attended to in a situation where there are four nurses to 15 patients. The ‘strauma’ (stress and drama) further increase for the nurses by the attitude of some patients. I personally witnessed an incident where it took all the nurses (all six of them) to restrain an 85-year-old woman, five feet, less than 100 pounds, who kicked, cuss, spat and scratched them.
Inspite of all this, there are nurses, doctors, attendants and technicians who on a daily basis save lives and help people at this hospital. And so it is to them I wish to say heartfelt thank you, what you do matters and makes a difference. To the attendants who carried me on stretcher to and from surgery, and the X-ray department, thank you for your kind and soothing words and for not dropping me.
My gratitude also extends to doctors Ramnauth, Garfield, Watson, France, Perreira, Armstrong and Chen. Also nurses: Greene, Dass, Hicks, Felix, P. James, Dublin, Stanton, Munroe and D. James.