Health Audit: How bad is it?

Someone I know well told me that while lying in his hospital bed watching the news, he heard for the first time of an audit that had been done for the health sector, and which found deficiencies in a number of areas of the health care delivery system.

He said, “I’m at the National Chest Hospital (NHC) in upscale Barbican where the lawns are mowed almost daily, the breeze is fresh and clean, the floor and toilets cleaned four times a day, medication is fairly adequate with some shortages of course, the staff is efficient, professional and caring, and meals are plentiful and served three times a day with good dietary foods, albeit tasteless, as hospital food goes, all under a relatively spacious facility.

“However, bed linen is in very short supply and one often has to wait for nearly a week before getting a change of sheets; and even when one gets the bottom sheet there is no guarantee of getting the top one, which is critical for protection from the loud, raging mosquitoes.

“Based on the many deficiencies found by the Health Audit, NCH seems to be a world away; so yes, I would like to read the report for myself, but the same person having previously experienced St. Ann’s Bay Hospital their description of KPH as a “prison house”, my friend knows that NCH is the ideal health facility and that it can only be worst elsewhere.”

WHAT’S YOUR EXPERIENCE?

By-the-way here’s the menu at NCH:

Breakfast includes two rolls of brown bread and a serving of table butter, a small serving of either sardine, mackerel, stewed liver or egg, a cup of porridge, mint or chocolate tea and either a banana or orange to top it up.

Lunch has been my worst nightmare with a daily dosage comprising a cup of watery pumpkin soup and a box of containing cucumber and callaloo or pack chow, white or curried rice and some pasta with fresh chicken, all without gravy and taste, along with a cup of warm juice.

My favourite meal is supper, which contains sliced tomato, one or two hotdog rolls with chopped sausages or cheese, a cold drink or water and a cup of warm milk or a bottle of the protein-filled ensure drink.