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Dear Editor,
And increasingly distressing they’ve become, evidencing a 25yr nonexistent healthcare policy, unravelling right before our very eyes. Thus, this our abused psyche, dies in a state of perpetual mourning, of which each our psychological scars, are excruciatingly lacerated by ten.
Now she who lives can’t explain, why victimhood denied medical adulthood, for derring-do what any teenager would’ve done, witnessing abuses of his mother. And for his intervening through intervention, a sharp blade penetrated, drew blood and took life.
So burdened by injurious injuries, medical attention was sought at GPHC, notorious for Giving Patients Horrible Care. But as his body haemorrhaged life, a routine Covid-19 test ensured death, and with result being of double red lines, the attending ER Physician was faced with decisions.
1. Admit to GPHC where there are both Surgical and Covid-19 services.
2. Transfer to the Infectious Disease Hospital that has only Covid-19 service.
And herein is evidence of PPP 25yrs failed healthcare policy, for abundantly certain am I, that the healthcare professionals who made the decision in this unfortunate case, couldn’t have foreseen this teenager demise. For this very fact, evidenced inadequate training.
Thus, both decision and wounds we will explore, albeit as a Consultant, easy it would be to argue that such a decision making process is straightforwardly simple. But here’s a confession, my times in that very A&E, where I worked unsupervised while inexperience, reminded me that PPP had us playing Russian Roulette with patients’ lives. Thus, the binary decision making process, we revisit;
Question 1: What could’ve imminently kill this young man?: The fact Covid-19 was diagnosed on routine testing, would suggest the teenager was asymptomatic or mild. So unlikely that would’ve rendered his heart asystolic, but the penetrating wounds in the vicinity of his pelvis, with likely others unseen, were likely to.
But this fact is key. Any penetrative wound to the pelvis, abdomen and chest is potentially fatal, for they house critical organs and blood vessels. As a matter of fact, depending on trajectory, breach it may to other anatomical region vis-a-vis, pelvis to abdomen. So this I articulate, a penetrative wound, superficially of benign appearance, could be internally catastrophic.
Question 2: Where should he have gone?
Certainly not to the Great Beyond or the Infectious Disease Hospital. In fact, if admitted to GPHC, he could’ve been isolated with the staff taking the necessary Covid-19 precautions. Simple mitigations and risk assessment, that escaped the brainless in PPP.
So why blame PPP? Let’s examine the last of their 25 unimaginative budget. They’ve announced plans to build a state of the art Paediatric Hospital. They sipped champagne over the idea of building a specialty hospital? They’re seizing photo opportunities at a polyclinic. So what’s wrong with that? The hospital physical buildings aren’t our problem. The problem is, PPP has never made investments in our healthcare professionals, professional development.
So the painful truth, that those of red must read, the newly built hospital will serve as a house of deaths, for PPP did nothing to develop our healthcare professionals. And here is the reason. Newly built hospitals are visible to their voters, while professional development for staff, isn’t tangible and visible. But how do you know building hospitals aren’t the answer? The evidence is in the mortality and morbidity indices, which are good barometers of a healthcare service performance. But the unproductive search you’ll be saved, for those matrices you’ll never find, since were they good, billboards would’ve had them displayed. RIP son.
Regards
Dr. Mark Devonish
