From Monday last the front gate at the New Amsterdam Hospital was closed and staff and the public now have to use a side entrance, leaving many unhappy but the authorities say that arrangement was long proposed.
This newspaper visited the hospital on Tuesday and observed that the gate is only opened to accommodate vehicles and patients seeking emergency treatment. All other persons have to use the side entrance located along Garrison Road.
An official from the hospital said that the front gate would be opened after 4:30 pm daily but would remain closed during the day.
He said that this was done to “clear the main entrance.”
The official also said that the move was made so that the vendors in front of the hospital would remove from the road. He noted that the area had become a traffic hazard and even though a pedestrian crossing is in front of the hospital it is still difficult to get across.
On Tuesday stalls that were in front of the hospital were closed while a few vendors have already taken up spots close to the side entrance.
It was also observed that hire car drivers lined both sides of the already narrow road, making it difficult to traverse, especially for students of St. Aloyouis Primary School, located in the street.
Nurses told Stabroek News that although they attended a meeting at the hospital on Friday they were not informed that the changes would have been made from Monday.
They said they turned up at the main gate to enter the hospital and were told by the security that they would have to “walk around” and they said “This is not fair.”
They said too that some of them have to check in for 7 am and if they are “late because of the long walk money would be deducted from our salary.”
The nurses pointed out that many patients who suffer from fractures, diabetes and other illnesses have to use the side entrance which is not wide enough to accommodate vehicles.
According to them an old lady was visiting the hospital to see the doctor and she stumbled and fell while walking in.
A woman told this newspaper Tuesday that her foot had become infected from her diabetic condition and she too has had to walk through the side entrance which is “putting more strain on me foot.”
Some persons from the Corentyne who had gone to visit a relative in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) told this newspaper, “They want we to walk around and we can only spend 15 minutes in the ICU. By the time we finally get there the 15 minutes gon be up.”
Further they said that they do not return home after the midday visit “because it too costly to come back at 4 pm so we stay at the hospital. But we can’t sit on the benches in the waiting area; we have to wait in the sun. They tell we only persons who seeing the doctor can wait there.”
According to one hire car driver, the authorities “have an old fence close to the road in front to the main entrance and even after they built a new fence they did not take off the old one. I feel that if they wanted to get the vendors off the road they could have removed the old fence and put the stalls more in the corner.”
The man said that having the entrance at the side does not solve all of the problems as the street is still congested. He is calling on the authorities to put better systems in place or the situation would “end up back to square one.”
