–          GPHC head of A&E says
–          Security being beefed up

THERE has been a recent scourge of violence against healthcare workers at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) and as a result, measures to beef up security at the institution are being taken.
This is according to the Head of the Accident and Emergency department at the GPHC, Dr Zulfikar Bux who during a press conference on Wednesday said that for June there have already been six cases so far of interpersonal violence against staff at the facility.
Dr Bux stated that the interpersonal violence that is occurring in society is spilling over into the health institutions here.

He added that these issues have also been happening in other Caribbean nations and serves as an eye opener for the entire system and not just in Guyana.
“We have had experiences with this over the years but my concerns are [it happening] more and more frequently and for the month of June we have had six cases so far of interpersonal violence, whether its abuse of staff and abuse in terms of getting close with being physical with staff,” he said.
Added to this, he indicated that over the last month, they have also had experiences with persons coming into the hospital with weapons.

Giving an example of one such case he noted that there was one where a patient who was stabbed twice came to the emergency department and the assailants came into the department to continue the course of action they started.
“They came into the department and they pulled out a knife and actually attempted to stab him. It did cause a small laceration, the entire department had to take siege because it was quite a few attackers and unfortunately, the victim had to run outside to seek cover outside of the institution,” he added.
Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer of the GPHC, Robbie Rambarran said that there are persons who would come in as patients and have weapons on them and these would be lodged with security even as there are also instances of persons accompanying patients with firearms and other weapons on their person.

However, speaking of interventions to curb these issues, he said that the hospital has been working along with a private security firm for some time while the institution also has its own security.
While indicating that security will be beefed up, he said that a lot more hand-held scanners and scanners at the entrances of the facility will be put in place.