Diamond Hospital mulling ways to expand services
L-R Deputy RHO Region 4, Dr. Seetram; DCMO Dr. Karen Boyle; Dr. Kay Shako and Deputy MS at Diamond Diagnostic Centre, Dr. Anisah Yearwood.
L-R Deputy RHO Region 4, Dr. Seetram; DCMO Dr. Karen Boyle; Dr. Kay Shako and Deputy MS at Diamond Diagnostic Centre, Dr. Anisah Yearwood.

…needs more nurses, midwives

THE Diamond Diagnostic Centre is operating at some 25 per cent of what it should be operating at and as such there is an urgent need for more nurses and midwives, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Karen Boyle has said.

Dr. Boyle was part of a delegation from the Ministry of Public Health that recently toured the hospital. Boyle disclosed that while the hospital has some nine specialists, which she said have certainly enhanced the level of service and performance of the hospital, there continues to be a great shortage of adequate nurses and midwives. “The hospital seems to be operating at 25 per cent of the midwives and nurses that they need so it’s really critical that we increase the nurses and midwives here,” Dr. Boyle was quoted in a release by the Region Four RDC as saying.

This, she stressed, is critically important and promise that her ministry along with the Regional Health Services Department of Region Four will meet to have this matter addressed. She said that several nurses will have to be shifted around to ensure that the hospital can have adequate nurses and midwives, thus relieving several nurses from what many consider a heavy workload.

“I chatted with the staff at Diamond and to find out how things are working and also to hear about some of their challenges and to brainstorm together in terms of what can be put in place, to see what needs to be done so that we can help them. See what can be put in place and to see how we can help them to improve the quality of service. They are certainly doing a good job here but there are some areas where they definitely need help,” she said.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer (DCMO) at the Ministry of Public Health, Dr. Karen Boyle.

The DCMO said that she is overall impressed with the level and quality of services being offered. She disclosed that she was particularly impressed with the fact that the hospital has been able to attract some nine specialists covering a wide array of areas. She, however, noted that there is certainly an urgent need for more support staff in the area of nurses. “We need more nurses, however, to function in a number of areas. As a 24-hour hospital we will certainly need more nurses and midwives and I think this is the problem that we are having country-wide,” Dr. Boyle said.

Commenting on the OBGY services that the hospital offers, the DCMO disclosed that they are two Obstetricians at the hospital but stressed that in order to provide an effective 24-hour service there is an urgent need for more support staff. “We are going to have to go back and to look and see how we can shift some nurses around because the truth of the matter is that every so often, countries from the north come in and they raise their flags and are able to attract some of our brightest nurses.

We are having serious challenges in terms of registered nurses and midwives. So, this is a particular area that we will have to find out how we can shift nurses and midwives from various regions to lend services here at Diamond so that we can have 24 hour deliveries; a shift system that must be in place for this diagnosis centre to really function the way that we envision to serve the East Bank Corridor,” Dr. Boyle stressed.

The DCMO disclosed that her ministry has been listening to several residents’ requests for significant expansion of the hospital admitting that the hospital has certainly outgrown the space that it had initially, thought was requited to serve the residents on the East Bank.

She said that they are seeking to address this issue noting that they have received some inputs from the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) with regards to lending support. She said as such, they have been looking at the Smart Hospital initiative stressing that expansion is evident. “We have been looking at expanding the hospital while changing some of the buildings that we have here and maybe use some of them that are used presently for housing and convert them into wards,” she declared.

She added, “The other option that we are exploring is having a new location with much bigger facilities so we are presently exploring these two options so we do agree that there is a need for expansion of the hospital as there is a need for something more robust to cater to the needs of this population.”

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