In an effort to ease the congestion of persons seeking health services at the Georgetown Public Hospital, the Campbellville Health Centre has extended its working hours on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
The closing hours on Tuesdays have now been changed from 16:00 hrs to 20:00 hrs, while on Saturdays the centre will open from 08:00hrs to 12:00hrs.
Dr Kampta Prashad, who has been at the centre for the past year, said that there were two main reasons for the hospital implementing such a project. He said the hospital management had noticed that a lot of persons were going to GPH for trivial things that can be treated at the primary level. The other reason was to help out those persons who were having problems getting time off from work to go to the clinic.
According to Prashad, the project started on April 16 and they have seen an increase in patients progressively. He said it must be noted that they never used to work on Saturdays, and that now that the clinic is open for several hours on this day, persons are taking advantage of it.
“More and more persons are coming for services… The services are not only concentrated for those persons in Campbellville, but persons from all over can come for these services. We get persons from as far as the East Coast.”
Prashad said those conditions that they can’t handle, they refer to the hospital. He added that it was noticed that on Tuesday, there are more persons going for services.
There is also medication available for ailments such as chronic diseases, skin infections and the common cold so that persons won’t have to spend a lot of time at the public hospital’s pharmacy.
Several persons have commended the efforts of the GPH in implementing the project, since they don’t have to spend a long time at the hospital for matters that can be treated at health centres.
The Campbellville centre is the first centre governed by the GPH to implement the project, and the others, Kitty Community Centre and the Enmore and Industry Health Centres on the East Coast are hoping to implement the same services soon.
