On January 20, Tirtawattie Shoandeo of Whim, Corentyne died at the New Amsterdam Hospital some hours after she had undergone a surgical procedure. Mrs Shoandeo’s family was unsure of what her illness was prior to the surgery, as it appears that no one had properly explained the diagnosis to them, if there was one. What struck the family, however, was that the hospital suffered a blackout while Mrs Shoandeo was in the operating theatre. Further, there was no emergency lighting, no automatic changeover; there was just no system in place.
Mrs Shoandeo’s son related to this newspaper that he saw the surgeon leave the theatre twice to retrieve flashlights. The first time he took a mini light from his car and on the second occasion he was looking for a flashlight; the young man was unsure whether he found one.
Yuraj Shoandeo also told this newspaper that he and other family members went looking for the porter who was supposed to turn on the hospital’s generator, but did not find him. He estimated that the blackout lasted an hour and believes that this was what caused his mother’s death.
The Ministry of Health, in what might go down in history as the fastest ever completed investigation into a patient’s death at a local public hospital, was able to reveal on Tuesday that there was no medical error involved in Mrs Shoandeo’s death. The ministry is also adamant that the blackout lasted just 17 minutes and not over an hour as the dead woman’s family had said.
While the ministry is probably correct on both counts, 17 minutes without power is a long time for someone lying on an operating table, whose vital signs were no doubt being monitored by equipment which required the use of electricity.
In fact, 17 minutes is a long time for a hospital to be without electricity, and the fact that this occurred at the New Amsterdam Hospital points to a huge lapse on the part of the Ministry of Health.
The Guyana blackout situation has been ongoing for so many years that an entire generation has grown up knowing and expecting that at some point—either during the day or at night, there could be a blackout. The Berbice blackout situation has become dire over the past ten years or so – longer than the new New Amsterdam Hospital has been in operation. The hospital has a generator for a back-up power supply. It obviously does not have the necessary maintenance personnel.
Chief Medical Officer Shamdeo Persaud, relating the outcome of the investigation into Mrs Shoandeo’s death to this newspaper, said that there were “gaps in the non-technical aspect.” This newspaper was also told that there were suggestions made that the generator be overhauled by a competent team or firm and for local personnel to be trained to manage it.
It is when details like this emerge that one serious doubts the sanity of those in authority. The New Amsterdam Hospital was commissioned nearly eight years ago, on February 20, 2005 with much fanfare as a state-of-the-art facility. Why on earth would a state-of-the-art facility not have competent maintenance personnel? Why is a porter tasked with turning the generator on and off? How often has the generator been serviced since it was installed and who does it? More importantly, who checks on these things?
The Ministry of Health ought to have an inspection team that would scrutinise its medical facilities on, say, an annual basis to ensure that everything that should be working is in fact functioning at an optimum level. If it had, surely the team would have noticed and recommended the upgrading/repair of the shoddy physical conditions at the New Amsterdam facility that so “shocked and sickened” Minister of Health Dr Bheri Ramsaran recently. One can only imagine what these sorry conditions do to people who are already sick when they go there.
Reports have been made about much worse conditions at other public health facilities, particularly the West Demerara Regional Hospital.
People have every right to doubt the quality of healthcare being provided when the hospital building is falling down around them. Studies have shown that it is difficult to maintain staff morale when people work in shoddy, shabby situations. Conditions at local public hospitals could improve if those in authority paid a little more attention to them instead of jumping up and down about a specialty hospital and blowing hot air about “medical tourism.”
