Health emergency

Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter

A 16-year-old boy with a gunshot wound, a young man with a broken hand and a woman in her sixth month of pregnancy were among the scores of persons who had to leave the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) without treatment yesterday as the local health sector faced a major crisis.

The story was repeated across the island as hospitals, clinics and health centres reduced operations after support staff in the health sector carried out their threat to take industrial action.

By late evening, news came that following talks with senior government ministers, the workers had decided to end their industrial action with normality expected to be restored by this morning.

But that is little comfort for persons who failed to receive treatment yesterday and who were told they would have to return next Monday.

"Everybody a walk past me and nobody nah say nothing to me. It look like me have to try get a different date," said the 16-year-old, who identified himself as Troy.

He was shot more than a month ago and was recently released from hospital but has to return weekly for additional treatment.

Similar story

It was a similar story for Shawn, who visits the KPH every Monday morning for follow-up treatment after a bone in his right hand was broken.

"I have been here from 5 a.m. and them take me card but all now me docket don't come out," Shawn said as he spoke with The Gleaner minutes after 10 a.m.

"If it was normal time, me would see the doctor by now but me no against the worker them fi strike as me can't vex with people fi protest fi dem money," he added.

In other departments at KPH, scores of patients who attended clinic also had a long wait or were forced to return home without treatment. However, the Accident and Emergency and the Casualty departments operated as normal.

In Portland, several patients who turned up at public health facilities complained about the long wait to see a health-care worker, while some who had become impatient left the centres.

One woman who gave her name only as Carlene, and who had a baby clutched by her side, told The Gleaner she was at the Port Antonio Hospital waiting for more than four hours for the results of a test for her baby.

"Bwoy, it slow bad," she said. "I have seen people come and go, but I cannot afford a private doctor, so I have to wait. I have been here before, and it was never like this."

Ambulance drivers and attendants, ward assistants, operating theatre technicians, enrolled assistant nurses, medical records workers and operating theatre porters all walked off the job yesterday to press their demand for the immediate payment of outstanding allowances.

Demanding a date

"We are demanding a payment date for our allowances that we have been waiting on since 2007," Jamaica Workers Union (JWU) delegate Paula Bolton told The Gleaner yesterday morning.

"What we get to understand is that the finance ministry says the Government has no money because we had asked for the reclassification amount plus the seven per cent increase and the allowance.

"Well, we are putting the reclassification aside and the seven per cent but we are demanding our allowance," Bolton added.

She said her colleagues who walked off the job were not trying to inconvenience patients.

Meanwhile, angry health workers at the Linstead Hospital in St Catherine protested outside the hospital's gate.

Angella Lobban-Rhooms, health records clerk at the Linstead Hospital, told The Gleaner that in light of price increases and other expenses, the Government should fulfil its promises.

Protesting medical workers at the Bellevue Hospital in east Kingston also argued that they had no option but to take industrial action.

Doctors support

The industrial action seemed to have the support of the Jamaica Medical Doctors' Association (JMDA), even though that body said it was regrettable that persons in the sector had to resort to protest.

"The health sector (patients and workers) can no longer afford to suffer; all categories of workers should be treated in a fair and equitable way," said the JMDA in a release.

While indicating that doctors were not part of yesterday's protest, the JMDA expressed its "solidarity with the principles of fairness and equity".

"We expect that the Government will allocate the necessary resources that are so urgently needed before any more patients are negatively affected. What affects one, affects all," said the JMDA.

Yesterday afternoon, officials of the ministries of Health, Finance and Labour met with the unions representing the workers to discuss the protest action.

In its initial response, the health ministry said it was not provided with any information regarding the industrial action.

According to Health Minister Rudyard Spencer, who returned to the island Sunday night, neither he nor any official of the health ministry was informed of the reason for the action taken by the health workers.

Spencer had travelled to Washington, DC, to attend the Pan-American Health Organisation Directing Council meeting which started yesterday and is slated to run to the end of the week.

Correspondents Gareth Davis and Karen Sudu contributed to this story.