This morning’s post, over at Barbados Free Press got me to thinking about my own experience with QEH.I spent a number of nights in QEH last year, as well as attended the maternity clinic there.Late in my pregnancy I was admitted overnight for observation as an existing heart murmur became increasingly noisy. I laboured and delivered my son in the maternity ward at QEH, and stayed almost a week there when my son was born because of his jaundice. I simply couldn’t afford to go to Bayview or The Birthing Centre, although that is what I preferred.I posted in my own blog about my fears of being in a Third World hospital, but hear what, my son and I both received the best care I could have gotten anywhere in the world for free. However, the physical reality of the hospital is daunting and depressing for just about anyone who actually stays there. At the end of my five night stay there, I was in a state of agitation because I was tired of the narrow uncomfortable beds, the ‘rules’ of the ward, one (and only one) ‘devil nurse’ (the rest were lovely), the awesome heat and general depressed state of the building I was in.I recognised that the doctors who attended me, were some of the best on the island, but the state of the equipment, the lack of reliable computers (and computers in general) leading to the long delays of almost everything, the quality of everything patients have to use and interact with, made me realise that QEH is as much a Third World hospital as I feared.Better than most, but still not as good as the ‘Second World’ status the PM long ago asserted this country to be.So when I hear people complaining about QEH, I feel it understand, and identify, because I’ve been through it. It is a ‘free medical care’ for the most part true, but it is excellent care being provided with little to no real support by the government of Barbados.It’s a short changing of the people of Barbados to boast about the medical care on the island, and how QEH is so good, when patients sleep in awful beds, equipment doesn’t work, staff don’t get paid, and almost everything is aged and aging.Where does the money go?Or should I ask, “Into whose pocket does the money go?”
September 7, 2007...2:24 pm
Poor, Poor QEH…
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September 10, 2007 at 3:33 pm
This post kind of reminds me of the expression attributed to the Madd character Ali Singh. ‘Good t’iing no cheap, cheap t’ing no good’.
When the government boasts about our excellent health care, they should really add a proviso ‘excellent…considering it’s free’.
How can we justify spending only $110 million a year on the QEH? Of which (I read in the papers recently) $100 million goes to staffing salaries? so we have $10 million left for equipment and everything else. I think it was in yesterday’s paper that BAMP (Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners) stated that at least $192 million is needed to run the hospital effectively.
The mostly excellent doctors and nurses and general staff at the QEH deserve much better support. Having gone to secondary school and then university with many of them, I know how hard they work- insanely hard. A friend of mine recently graduated – on a Friday I believe. By the Tuesday when I called her, she had put in a 20-hour shift and was past the point of exhaustion. And she had to do it again the next day, starting at 8 a.m. Trust me, you cannot pay anyone enough to work those kind of hours – they are doing it out of drive and dedication.
Yet we find money for other projects- true they are one-offs but it is still money that is found. And more often than not, they end up with huge, mystifying overruns- such as the Operation Free-Flow roadworks which we have now heard will cost THREE TIMES AS MUCH! A jump from $60 million to $180 million – US FRICKING DOLLARS!
And not a government official has come forward to explain this yet. Now the way me sees it, that is BD$240 million that could be put towards the QEH…