Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) has moved to ad­dress grow­ing con­cerns on­line over the sta­tus of the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal and claims that life-sav­ing equip­ment has been moved to the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal.

The Au­thor­i­ty was re­spond­ing to a Face­book post by Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion al­der­man Kobe Sandy, who called for im­me­di­ate an­swers from the au­thor­i­ties re­gard­ing the sta­tus of the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal.

“Is the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal clos­ing down? I am call­ing on the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Point Fortin and Min­is­ter of Health to ad­dress these claims im­me­di­ate­ly,” he asked.

He added, “More im­por­tant­ly, why is it al­leged that life-sav­ing crit­i­cal equip­ment is be­ing trans­ferred from Point Fortin to Cou­va Hos­pi­tal? I have many more ques­tions that arise, but they are hinged on the re­spons­es I hope will arise from this post. I call up­on the MP and his Gov­ern­ment not to play Russ­ian Roulette with the lives of the peo­ple of Point Fortin. It will be a se­ri­ous des­e­cra­tion of du­ty if this is hap­pen­ing with­out a word from the min­istry and the MP on this mat­ter.”

He al­so ques­tioned why cer­tain mem­bers of staff and nurs­es were al­leged­ly forced to sign non-dis­clo­sure agree­ments, ask­ing whether it was to si­lence them from speak­ing on is­sues.

Sandy said he was not con­cerned that his com­ments could have reper­cus­sions, say­ing that they were “wel­comed to in­voke your au­to­crat­ic SoE reg­u­la­tions to ar­rest me and con­fis­cate my phone. I look for­ward to be­ing a mil­lion­aire cour­tesy the State in short or­der.”

In re­sponse, how­ev­er, the SWRHA said it took note of in­ac­cu­rate and mis­lead­ing state­ments, jux­ta­posed as ques­tions about the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal.

“In re­al­i­ty, the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal con­tin­ues to pro­vide es­sen­tial ser­vices to the com­mu­ni­ty of Point Fortin and sur­round­ing ar­eas, whilst ac­tive­ly man­ag­ing clin­i­cal ser­vices, staffing and pa­tient care to en­sure un­in­ter­rupt­ed ac­cess to care for all,” SWRHA said.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, it said that in the com­ing months, it will roll out an ex­pand­ed suite of clin­i­cal ser­vices.

With re­gard to equip­ment move­ments, the SWRHA con­firmed that there has been no trans­fer of life-sav­ing crit­i­cal equip­ment from the hos­pi­tal to the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal.

“From a man­age­ment and best prac­tise per­spec­tive, trans­fers of se­lect­ed equip­ment be­tween fa­cil­i­ties are rou­tine op­er­a­tional mea­sures to ad­dress clin­i­cal pri­or­i­ties and en­sure the best use of re­sources.”

The Au­thor­i­ty fur­ther ex­plained that con­fi­den­tial­i­ty agree­ments en­tered in­to by the Au­thor­i­ty and em­ploy­ees are vol­un­tary and con­sis­tent with es­tab­lished hu­man re­sources pro­ce­dures, so as to pro­tect val­ued clients, con­sis­tent with the Pa­tient’s Char­ter of Rights and Oblig­a­tions.

The Au­thor­i­ty ad­vised the pub­lic to be care­ful when mak­ing as­ser­tions.