The Parliamentary Social Services Committee on Thursday visited the New Amsterdam Public Hospi-tal and heard that there was a drug shortage, more staff was needed and a key testing machine was out of order.
Chair of the committee, Dr. Vindhya Persaud stated after the visit that there is a drug shortage in the region which has been raised by patients notably for chronic non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension as well as for others such as thyroid disease.
“What we have noticed is that there seems to be some difficulty between the demand or supply and procurement…Sometimes it is that the hospital may have, but inadequate to supply the outpatient or they would not have received sufficient medication from MMU (Materials Management Unit). There seems to be shortages but they are expecting to receive medication … and we will have an updated list as to what is available and what is not”, she stated.
When asked how the drug shortage problem will be tackled, she said, “The way this committee functions we would prepare a report on what we would have encountered today and we will now write to the same hospital and make the recommendations”. She added that “One of the things the committee also has the ability to do is summon the Minister of Health to give reasons as to why there are shortages, we will also have a discussion as to the way forward when we head back to parliament”.
For months since it entered office in 2015, the APNU+AFC administration has faced complaints around the country of drug shortages.
The committee members were also asked at the press briefing after the tour of the hospital if they were able to determine whether there were issues with the system used to procure drugs for the hospital.
“There seems to be an issue, one a bureaucracy and two some difficulties with accessing the medications at the hospital level from MMU…It could be that MMU is called and they don’t have the supply, so the hospital may have to purchase but also in terms of the budget that the hospital has, it may not always be able to purchase adequately to fill the shortage at that time…So there is a problem with communication and with also supply”, the Chair of the committee said.
Dr Persaud stated that according to her understanding from the visit, the MMU, which is scheduled to supply the hospital on a monthly basis is given enough notice before the medications are exhausted but they do not adequately replenish those supplies, “So the problem is at that level, that’s the sense I got from the visit at the hospital”.
During the visit the committee also learnt that a critical machine in the lab has not been functioning since November last year. “Which means that most of the region will not be able to have critical labs which they need, I’m trying to figure as a doctor myself how the doctors are managing to treat the patients without critical laboratory tests being done. That is a huge dilemma the hospital is facing”. It was also noticed that the New Amsterdam Hospital lab is in dire need of lab technicians since it recently lost over seven staff and as such the committee recommended that the vacancies be advertised in the various national newspapers.
In reference to the hospital theatres, Persaud stated that several issues were raised with regard to the optimum functioning of both theatres. “Those two theatres have to take off the loads of surgeries, we also heard that there was a shortage of anaesthetic that was required for performance of elective surgeries, so there is a backlog of over 400 and something cases waiting to be done”, she said.
Persaud said that the purpose of the visit was also to meet with the staff and management in order to get an overview of what takes place at the public hospital.
“After this visit we are going to have recommendations which we are going to take to parliament and have those recommendations acted on”. She stated that the institution will also be written to with recommendations and after a while there will be a follow up visit to see whether or not progress had been made.
Meanwhile, Minister within the Ministry of Public Health, Dr. Karen Cummings, who is also a part of the committee said “The Ministry of Health is working to bridge the gaps that exist in all the essential areas”. She noted that, “The Ministry was engaged with some of the international partners like PAHO, because we do have a permanent supplier, because they are saying that sometimes the suppliers don’t have the quantity of the needed drugs, so we are engaging with our national partners to ensure we have these drugs…We are working with logistics, (the) Management Infor-mation System as we know there are various bonds but we want to ensure that the drugs coming from MMU in Georgetown will go directly to Port Mourant, Skeldon and Mibicuri”.
She also spoke highly of the doctors, nurses and staff attached to the New Amsterdam Public Hospi-tal, who the committee believes are both innovative and hardworking. “An example to the rest of the country”, they labelled them.
The hospital is expected to complete its brand new High Dependency Unit, Maternity Unit with its own theatre, lab and doctors housing before the end of the year.
