{"id":2400,"date":"2019-06-10T19:52:44","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T19:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2400"},"modified":"2019-06-10T19:52:52","modified_gmt":"2019-06-10T19:52:52","slug":"overcrowded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2400","title":{"rendered":"Overcrowded"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Barrington Flemming<\/strong> – Staff Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bertel Moore, Mayor of Savanna-la-Mar, has raised the red flag over what he says is the deplorable condition of the emergency room and a serious problem of overcrowding at the Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital in Westmoreland.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking in an interview with the Western Mirror, <\/strong>Mayor\nMoore says on a recent visit to the parish\u2019s chief medical facility, he was\nappalled at the poor condition which continues to prevail there and is calling\non the authorities to move with urgency to address the worsening condition at\nthe health facility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is deplorable. The nurses cannot function well at the\nemergency room, which is grossly overcrowded, with patients waiting in\nwheelchairs and ordinary chairs for up to three days for beds, while their\nconditions worsen,\u201d Mayor Moore explained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said another problem is the number of patients who have\nbeen discharged with no relatives coming to claim them, forcing them to remain\nhoused at the hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a really bad situation that we have been trying to\ndeal with. They need to be housed in the infirmary, but the infirmary has no\nspace to accommodate them. We (Municipal Corporation) are trying to see if we\ncan have another building erected there. The drawings have been done but we are\nnot hearing anything about it, despite numerous enquiries,\u201d he said.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Camile Lewin, Chief Executive Officer at the\nhospital, when contacted, confirmed that the hospital was in fact reeling from\nan overcrowding problem which dates back two years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is severe overcrowding at the hospital. A\nrefurbishment exercise was undertaken in 2012 where the bed capacity was\nincreased to 164. So, since the past two years, we have not gone below the 200\nmark.  And over the past two months, we\nhave been accommodating 230 persons or a little more.  And yes, we do have people sitting in wheelchairs\nfor days,\u201d she admitted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miss Lewin further explained that while the hospital does\nnot have a shortage of beds, they have serious shortage of bed space as they\nhave used up all available spaces, so it is a major challenge to identify space\nto place beds for patients.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we are proposing is to create a transitional ward and\nwe are consulting with the National Health Fund on this to take some patients\nfrom Accident and Emergency to this area, which would be limited in its scope\nas only about 15 persons could be held there.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She explained further that the space problem has been\ncompounded by social patients, who have already been discharged from the\nhospital, but no one has come to collect them and they are housed at the\nhospital. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe social cases now stand at 25 patients that really\nbelong to the infirmary who are occupying well-needed bed space. Our numbers\nare increasing in the emergency room and there is not much we can do on the\nward based on the number of social cases we now have,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said that some persons would drive up to the hospital\nand leave patients at the hospital and never return to see them or to take them\nhome when they are ready to leave.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bertel Moore, Mayor of Savanna-la-Mar, has raised the red flag over what he says is the deplorable condition of the emergency room and a serious problem of overcrowding at the Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital in Westmoreland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[188,29],"class_list":["post-2400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-savanna-la-mar","tag-westmoreland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2402,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400\/revisions\/2402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}