In relation to the current bed shortages at the NRH, the issues at the National Referral Hospital are more than the availability of the beds, says Pauline McNeil, Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Health and Medical Services.
McNeil revealed this yesterday during a press conference on the issue of bed shortage and overcrowding at the emergency department.
“The issue is more than the availability of the bed, its systematic, it’s functional, its management, it is corporate services, so, those are the issues that we are trying to address,” she said.
McNeil said, systematically they have late discharges from the laboratory (not reporting on time) so to enable the clinicians and doctors to give the results to the patients to enable them to be discharged.
She said when they (clinicians and doctors) discharge the patients; they continue remaining at the NRH because of logistics issues – due to discharged patients not being able to return home quickly.
“So it’s a whole range of issues that we are faced with, and therefore I think the immediate measures are to put in place procedures and protocols making the clinicians and the nurses to be accountable for timely reporting,” Ms.McNeil said.
She said there are lots of a systematic issues that have to be addressed immediately and in the longer term as per the NRH business case. The first phase being NRH improvement and the second phase being the east and west HCC clinics.
“We are already having discussions with the Ministry of Lands for securing a place in the Kukum vicinity and we are looking at Rove so that it can provide functional services, not only a health clinic, but we also want to have diagnostic laboratory services and other services that can be offered in Kukum and at Rove.
“So those are short term measures but right now we want to ensure that the system is functional for the NRH so that the flow can be efficient.
“The team is working hard they have started the work putting in place the mechanism in terms of the bed management system. The task force is already finding issues in managing the beds and seeing to the bottlenecks.
“So we are trying to address things immediately while going forward for the short to long term measures,” Ms. McNeil said.
End of quote.
Source: Solomon Star News.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
