By Francine Black, Staff ReporterCHOOSING BETWEEN the better of two evils is a decision that some doctors have been forced to make following the continuation of an acute shortage of supplies in the health sector.
According to Dr. Patrick Toppin, president of the Jamaica Medical Doctors' Association, due to the shortages doctors have had to make decisions about the procedures they can do.
"Sometimes we have to decide whether to do a procedure without the standard material and dealing with the infection after or not doing the procedure and dealing with the infection then," he said.
Hospitals reportedly are short of basic supplies such as gloves, bandages, alcohol and medication.
Reports reaching The Gleaner are that some of the hospitals in the southern part of the island have been experiencing a shortage of drugs, while hospitals in the Corporate Area are short of gloves and bandages.
SURGERIES
Further reports are that at least one hospital in the eastern part of the island is low on intravenous (IV) fluid, vulturine injections and even Savlon.
According to Dr. Toppin, the islandwide shortage has impacted on the doctors as there were instances when surgeries could not be performed because of the shortage of medicines and supplies.
Dr. Raymoth Notice, mayor of Spanish Town, said the Spanish Town Hospital has been experiencing a shortage of drugs for sometime. However, he pointed out that the pressure placed on hospitals elsewhere in the island due to the shortages was not as bad in Spanish Town because of the assistance of local clinics.
The reasons behind the shortage are varied, however, according to one supplier, they are in part due to the millions of dollars owed to suppliers by the Ministry of Health.
A spokesperson for one company said it was owed more than $4 million and would be resorting to drastic measures to collect it. The spokesperson, who requested anonymity, said he was owed a low of $407,000 and a high as $1.7 million by various hospitals. "We have to be holding the hospitals to ransom," he told The Gleaner.
Dr. Toppin believes that the current shortages have arisen because of the increased pressure being brought to bear on the public health system and not enough resources being pumped into it to meet these demands.
In the meantime, the shortages have also impacted on the health care being provided for the Haitian refuges entering the island.
According to a source at the local health department in Port Antonio in Portland, screening at the Fair Prospect Health Centre had been affected last week, due to the shortage of supplies. The medical personnel were testing for various diseases such as malaria, typhoid and cholera.
"Additional emergency supplies had to be brought in (from Kingston) by helicopter to deal with the crisis situation," the source said.
Reports surfaced this week that the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH), the largest such facility in the island, was only facilitating cancer surgeries.
However, Dr. Douglas McDonald, Senior Medical Officer at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital which shares administrative duties with the KPH, denied these reports.
"It is not true," Dr. McDonald told The Gleaner. "The hospital can do elective surgeries and emergency surgeries."
