It is NOT rocket science, Hon, Minister, that if people are simply told to go home and quarantine/isolate without any other instructions/prescriptions for alleviating their symptoms, then there will be escalation and need to go into hospital – something to be avoided at all costs. Therefore, what are the instructions and protocols that those doing the testing must follow when a person tests positive?
While this phenomenon had become an annual challenge, apparently this year it was worse than usual, going on for well over two months, to the detriment of persons in surrounding communities in particular, Brizan and communities/residents on the parish boundary.
Hon. Minister, your reference to people having respect for institutions and positions of authority reminded me of your wish for 2007, made publicly on Sundays with George Grant programme sometime in December 2006 – your wish that we in Grenada would have respect for institutions. In your intervention on the GBN programme, you took the Grenada Bar Association and its President to task for what you considered to be the lack of respect for institutions and for persons of Authority, i.e. the Ministry of Health and its Chief Medical Officer. Hon. Minister, as my mother would comment, “Is the President and the Bar Association yuh have strength on!”
I trust, Sir, that the Grenada Medical Association will not bury its head in the sand to the real concerns and emerge only to issue self-righteous press statements about “a growing trend of misguided public statements attempting to vilify doctors”. I trust that the GMA sees itself as a professional organization representing the best interests of all of its members so that they can best serve the interest of the general public and health care delivery in Grenada.
I have had cause to visit the General Hospital twice during the last week and I take this opportunity to share my impressions and concerns with you.
On the To the Point programme of the Grenada Broadcasting Network on February 21st, a number of callers expressed their concern about the condition of what is supposed to be our “state of the art hospital”. The particular concern being addressed by callers on this programme was the unavailability of adequate quantities of oxygen. One caller spoke of having to be taken off her oxygen in order to make it available for some one who was in much more serious condition than herself.
