From Judy Dove.
IS it not time that something was done about the operations being cancelled because of bed shortages and inadequate staffing at the Hospital?
As a patient prepared to go private in order to ensure I could have my knee operated on while my husband, who is disabled, was in respite care, a date was fixed for the beginning of November. I have just received a letter from the consultant’s secretary informing me that my operation, the date of which had already been changed twice because of problems at the Hospital, has now been cancelled, according to the management in the Hospital, ‘due to various reasons, mainly staff wellbeing and bed capacity challenges’ and that there is no new operation date in the foreseeable future.
What has happened to the Hospital, which was always so brilliant in the past? My husband has had many operations, all within a short timescale of seeing the consultant, both privately and publicly, so what has gone wrong?
It appears that both public and private hip and knee surgery is the casualty, with many one-day case orthopaedic operations still going ahead. The private ward in the Hospital is full of NHS patients – why? The money the Hospital receives from private patients helps to pay for others to have operations, so what has gone wrong? And please don’t blame the pandemic; that has become the get-out clause for everything.
If the problem lies in bed blocking because patients cannot get care in the community, then this must be addressed immediately. If it isn’t, then what is going to happen when we enter winter?
Surely it is time to have a shake up in the way the Hospital is run? Maybe there are too many chiefs?
To the Health Minister, I ask who is going to sort out the situation at the Hospital before our specialist consultants start leaving the Island in frustration?
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