Minister Ra-Hell's Hospital of Horrors

From the Trinidad Guardian Wednesday 13th June, 2007
Man walks with bed to Sando hospital

BY ANIKA GUMBS-SANDIFORD

PICK up thy bed and walk.
The biblical saying has come to pass at the San Fernando General Hospital.
Unable to bear seeing Jimmy Smyke, 55, in pain while lying on a bench on ward 11, his wife Irma, yesterday returned to their home at Clarke Street, Vistabella, and brought a bed to the hospital for her husband to lie on.
The red metal bed was set up inside the ward along a corridor.
For the past four days patients at the SFGH have been forced to lie on the ground due to a bed shortage caused by overcrowding.

Yesterday patients were heard complaining about back pains as they were seen sitting on wheelchairs and wooden benches or lying on stretchers
A hurt Irma said Smyke, a heart patient, was admitted to the ward on Monday night after complaining of severe chest pains.
However, Irma said when they arrived on the ward a nurse told her there were no available beds.
“I stayed the night with my husband and as soon as morning broke and the doctor came on the ward I asked him if I could have brought a bed for my husband. He told me, ‘Absolutely,’ so I called my son and we went home and got the bed.

“This is absolutely ridiculous. If a dog sick do not bring him here!” Another patient Khsio Manickchand, 47, who slept on a mattress on the ground, said he had to share the narrow mattress with another patient.
Manickchand said he was warded at the hospital after suffering a severe virus attack.
Holding up his drips, Manickchand said: “Look at my condition and I have to share a mattress with a stranger...imagine I am sick and I am still uncomfortable.”

Look where we reach in this country. The prime minister taking taxpayers money to fix up his house nice, nice while them very same taxpayers can't get a bed to sleep on in the hospital. He talking stadium, rapid rail, interchange, smelter, jobs for all, houses for most, Caroni land for some! In the meantime, sick people sleeping on the floor, and it so bad, somebody had to bring a bed from home. In a country with oil and gas coming out our arse and money to burn, a man had to bring his bed from home so he could get somewhere to sleep in the hospital.

Mr John Rahael, you should be ashamed of yourself. As Minister of Health, your job is to make sure that people get quality health care at public institutions, both in terms of technology and customer service. Your job is not to smile and pose for the camera when the Government buys some piece of equipment and then talk about the state-of-the-art health care available in T&T. State-of-the-fart is more like it. Pictures don't lie Johnny Boy. You failing bad. With all the billions of dollars floating around in the economy, we dont even have a proper health care system.

What would it take to build a proper hospital for the people? Is our damn money you know. Not yours! We just put you there to manage it, but you not managing sh*t. Those same people who are lying in the corridors and on the floors of the nation's hospitals are the ones that are putting bread and butter.. excuse me.. caviar and champagne on your table. They are the taxpayers. But you take their money and literally kick them to the ground. You bite the hand that feeds you. One day, that hand is going to not appreciate getting bitten all the time, and you might get an unlucky blow that could land you in the hospital.