Submitted by C Newton
The pending industrial action at the QEH can only be about greed by the doctors and sensational behaviour of the NUPW. Speaking to a union delegate to the issue, it is a case of relief workers who are also called casual workers. These are only called in by management to fill in when someone is on holiday or sick leave.
The NUPW is claiming that they have an expectation to fill any suitable vacancies over anyone else. QEH Board has taken the position that it must hire the best persons at all levels, like private sector companies do, and are seeking to put clear recruitment policies in place.
As a former Salesman of Hospital Supplies, I will give an example. Meal carts being sold to QEH for as much as $10,000 when the real cost was $2,500 unpadded. Mr Dexter James, the Minister and Board must stop people from outsourcing to themselves. The mafia style syndicate must be broken up among QEH doctors and employees. Consultants cannot continue to give private patients priority over public ones. The QEH must work on a formula on consultants public private consultations, thus the resistance to accountability.
My girlfriend works in the Lab and has told me that many a times they are limited reagents. Yet some doctors would drop off their specimens from their private practice to be tested. Can these things be fair to the tax payers of Barbados? If the doctors want to strike let the greedy ones strike. I will give the Ministry of Health my support if they fire them for withholding services to the poor.
Some doctors even got the gall to charge more for first visits, thus pushing health care inflation to be the highest in the Caribbean. Mr Minister, you have my support, the QEH is ailing, you need to take corrective measures before it goes on life support.
Please give a chance to younger but often times better trained doctors, the chance to move up.
227 responses to “Are Doctors Fighting To Protect Turf At Queen Elizabeth Hospital?”
Kammie
I am overseas and I am not a member of BAMP either. Nor have I been made a judge or ruler of the medical fraternity of Barbados. I am trying to explain how the system works, as it is clear that critics seem very ignorant thereof.
I salute you for your good tax free income. When I last worked as a doctor in Barbados and was getting consultant level pay, I didn’t get that much after tax and NIS. Surprised?
Bajan Truth
The hospital situation is indeed like a chronic disease and the internal politics and dynamics and the people there might very well have poisoned the system to our detriment as Barbadians. It may also make change very very difficult.
However note that Junior doctors come and go. The Civil servants who have a supporting role stay. DO YOU KNOW THAT ALL DOCTORS WHO WORK FOR THE STATE ARE UNDER CONTRACT?
NONE OF THE RECENT Ministers of Health are competent. Branford Taitt was the last useful MOH that we have had.
With respect to your rant on the now deceased former. Head of the Xray department you say that “you do not know what was the reason for not ordering the equipment” and that you “cannot see why any director of the hospital would not order the equipment, because it was basic and so necessary especially for poor patients.” But yet you some how assume that “some persons from hospital stating that it was done deliberately by the said doctor ( not putting in an order for the equipment) to build his practice” were accurate in their pronouncements.
What the envious folk in the hospital dont know is that his classmates and colleagues were supporting his business by sending the business to his establishment that would previously had gone to the hospital. So he didnt need to do the things of which he was accused.
I put it to you that if there was better oversight by the Hospital Director and the Senior Medical Officer of Health for Institutions and the Minister of Health that this could not occur! I PUT IT TO YOU THAT THE SYSTEM DOES NOT WORK BECAUSE LOTS OF FOLK ARE NOT WORKING.
Wait Geargie,
Yah mean dah I get ban from pokin’ lil’ fun at you…? Come on man, don’ do dat to me … I only poke fun at people wid broad shoulders and dey ain’ many ah dem lef’. I hope dat dis is a temporary ban Georgie…
Is BFP that ban you man. Not anybody pun BU. You is a good iron talker when you ready. How can we ban you man?
Monica // July 7, 2010 at 2:46 PM
@ Georgie Porgie
You too funny and sweet! I love you, man.
________________________________________
Waiiiiiiiiit where you now come from???????
Thanks Bonny for representing me.
LOL!
Thanks GP that helps I will follow up with more information as I learn it.
Thanks again.
Dr Georgie, ah cannot believe you can be so calm and explicit without getting upset. Wow, Oh by the way the latter part of your statement was inadvertently attributed to me, for I know not of what you talk. Dr. G.
I must say you have a sharp and venomous tongue, but you seem like an intelligent an cool dude. Confession time, I enjoy your rantings and ravings I find them informative.
Finally, sorry to know we have lost your medical skills as you seem like a doctor who is personable.
JC
No need to mention. You kno dat you is my sista from anudda motha. And you can always count on me ta aid ya out.LOL
Now that I get lil’ ol’ I find myself using the public health system quite a bit, after all, all these tests that you are suppose to get when you are in your forties and fifties, (you know for sugar and prostate and everything else) man you could save real money. Once I needed minor (elective, no cosmetic) surgery done and decided to use the bashment option. The process took about six months before the operation actually took place. Of course you have to meet and speak to a number of specialists (first the Mister – English trained surgeon, then the wanna be Mister and so on). Man these people like they crave little company man. People enough stacked up behind me, and I am in with one of these guys having polite conversation for close to 45 min. I really was not inclined to rock the boat, after all I was expecting that some time soon my life would be in their hands… But come on man, the sense of contempt for patients was thick and ever present. One guy said (even though I understood the sentiment, but to say it in earshot of so many patients…) that “he hated clinic”…
Indefensible man… Obscene…!
By the way Georgie you and me suppose to represent a bond between aestheticism and Christianity that MUST not be broken… for the sake of the good that is in ALL man…!
@BAFBFP
How lil ol are you? Nuh!
ac
I still functional…!
BAFBFP // July 8, 2010 at 5:59 PM
It seems you attended a teaching clinic! LOL
Or saw a grand round, when the Big Chief and Lesser Chiefs Interns and Medical Students walk a round behind the Big Chief who asks questions and pontificates.
Great fun in its time. LOL
You should make the most of the Public Health System if you have the time, and you can wait.
You pay for it whether you use it or not.
Well clinics can be boring except when you have the challenges of new patients to diagnose. Thats why I prefer to teach!
@BAFBFP
Fuh real! in what areas!
ac
But ac seriously. My understanding of women, very limited as it is, is that they are obsessed with those little things that make us different.. Am I wrong..?
GP
Gregory House MD is my favorite celebrity…
@BAFBFP
It is called the woman’s right to know. NO? or those things that make us say “I should have known that” or something here is not right.
But ac
How could you know..? Me being something that you disapprove of… Seriously how could you know (so that I don’ make the same mistake again..)
@BAF
What disaprove!you o.k. in my book.
BAFBFP
You is sound too ‘sweet’ when you begging. I could nevva tell you ‘no’ if I was ac.
(my tongue gettin a hard-on again) stupseeee.
Looks like the turf war has started at the QEH.
In walks Mia to make it all political. The QEH Saga continues.
I have more respect for Rev Guy Hewitt the chairman of the hospital board than I have for GP or any doctor who was educated by the tax dollars of Barbadians. Some of these doctors behave like lords.
If the consultants are not following directives from the board then it is time to go. They are in private practice and therefore cannot suffer from a lack of income. I read that one of the consultants contract expired but he wants to continue. It is not his choice to decide if he continues.
Jerry Emptage should become a snowbird. He obviously loves Barbados but he would do well in Canada or the USA.Work six months up North and go to Barbados and vacation for the other 6 months.
GP I guess you will not be joining the returning national “program” until you ready to retire an dun wuk.
C Newton wrote “Meal carts being sold to QEH for as much as $10,000 when the real cost was $2,500 unpadded. ”
I am wondering if the QEH does not buy its housekeeping supplies and soe other supplies after receiving competitive bids.
Earlier this year I was spliciting a service and the lowest bid was less than $2,000 and the highest more than $7,000 for exactly the same service. The contract actually went to the second lowest bidder at $2,800 as the lowest bidder could not meet all the standards specified.
But $7,000? no way, unless I planned to take a kickback, which I did not.
All this fight over Jerry Emtage .. that arrogant ass..!
Comrade Minister, solution is very clear… Doctors in Cuba very cheap and very very good… Most speak very very good English.. Very good and very cheap Doctors in East too… If nurses strike you would run to Uganda or Sri Lanka .. no? Comrade Minister must have serious conversation with Comrade Fidel or Comrade Raul or my family ..no? He who sleeps with problem rises with solution in hand … NO?
Mr Fair Play Sir
Having been educated on the tax payers dime, please kindly note that I worked in every capacity in which I could get work as a doctor to serve the people of Barbados, for 20 years.
Be it known to you that certain jobs in which I acted for 16 years was given to a Trinidadian , who does not do the work, does not like the work as told to me by his dear wife. AND THIS IS KNOWN! I can go on. But I wont.
I made my contribution OK? And I continue to make a contribution on health matters to the Bajan public on BU.
Do you really think that some priest can give directives to a doctor? Is this priest the High Priest/ Great Physician?
It is easy to get into emotional babbling about health and the hospital , but what is the populace doing about thier health? Very few get involved in the discussions on BU except for when there is controversy involving the braying donkey.
Hants
What will I return to? The same old same old? Now you have medical illiterates on the Hospital Board! What next?
I long to go home, but to the eternal home, where there are no morons in charge, and where moronic mouthings are not heard. Can you imagine the bliss thereat on this score alone? The absence of braying jack asses there.
Dear Georgie Porgie:
I do not like to argue theology with you, because I fear that I will always lose. But are you sure that there are no idiots (braying jackasses) in heaven?
God seems to like idiots a lot because he sure made a real lot of them on earth.
Well if they are J, according to Revelation 4 & 5 they wont be braying; seems they will be busy singing praises to the Lamb! LOL
Apparently everyone will be able to sing properly then too! LOL
“God seems to like idiots a lot because he sure made a real lot of them on earth..”
I really laugh out loud at that … I think maybe J is descendant of Confucius ..no?
Ha ha … really laugh out loud ..no?
Comarade Porgie
an intelligent agent tell me that Barbados in serious need of good diagnostician … you be very knowledgeable ..no? Sparman and other medicine men advertise business and no one in community complain about ethics … maybe you come back home, set up practice and advertise … you get plenty business, particularly from women …no? Me have no woman so me not frighten… We from East under advise to stay away from Bajan female, maybe they make laughter at us … no?
BAFBFP
I really have no plans to practice medicine anywhere.
I just want a real good teaching position in Biochem or Pharmaco somewhere, where the students are not too silly
My intelligent agent inform me – Cave Hill Campus big chief very sweet on building big medical school on Hill… Very sensible move.. Many year Campus produce lawyer after lawyer … Now finally Chief decide to do something SENSIBLE with tax payer money ..no? Maybe Porgie talk with big Chief or second big chief Fraser … he also very wise head … In East we not waste knowledgeable elder… Taxpayer not mind if big Chief spend money on good teaching talent in very useful area ..no? No better time than the present Comrade Porgie …no?
Two years ago Big White Chief said they have staff to teach Basic Sciences. I have no PhD, so they wont want me. Schools prefer PhD’s who like to rearch but can not teach.
No No Big White Chief my friend … buy from my family…! PhDs make very very horrible teacher … no no Big White Chief very wrong …! Very very wrong …! In East we revere experience teacher … Maybe if tax payer know that it cheaper to employer teacher without PhD, and get same or better result, then tax payer force hand of Big White Chief hand…no? PhD make bad bad teacher … my intelligent agent did not inform that Cave Hill was aiming at great medical research facility … maybe my family see opportunity here ..no?
Teaching very difficult assignment Comrade Porgie … Very rare to meet someone who actually like assignment .. make no sense to waste calling ..no?
Is this really your quote?
“Do you really think that some priest can give directives to a doctor? Is this priest the High Priest/ Great Physician?”
That question shows your arrogance.
The priest is the chairman of the board which is mandated to set policy. Not to tell the doctor how to diagnose a patient. For example the policy may say that consultants cannot use the surgery for ten of their private patients as against one public patient.
In that situation, why can’t the priest give directives to a doctor?
While attending first year biology classes I came into contact with so many persons who are doctors now who were just average students but past labs and papers help them a great deal to do well in their course work. Some of them barely got through medical school.
It is a learning situation where you take living human bodies and make mistakes like any other person. As you get older and more experience from making those mistakes then your arrogance cannot be controlled.
There is nothing magical about a doctor.
Rambarrat lazy them saying, Jerry Emtage putting private patients before public patients. In de private sector my contract can be terminated with due notice. Is Jerry so special who overcharging people so special! $30,000 fuh bracatheraphy he charging for an hour procedure.
It is about time the cartel headed by the Consultants is broken at the QEH. This Board obviously has some ‘guts’ to it. For the Opposition to turn this into a political football is regrettable.
@ David
This is not a breaking up of the ‘Cartel’, but a mere replacement of members of the group with your own. Policy NOT personnel changes will break up the cartel.
@Enuff
Let us assume that you are correct. Shall we replace those who have grown fat at the trough in the meantime?
Two Board Chairs is two weeks who have guts and who speak intelligently to the public…..WOW!
…..maybe there is hope for Barbados after all….
@GP,
….you always seem much wiser when you stick to power point presentations…
Humility and compassion very big in East … wise head know this ..! Maybe Bushman spend more time in East and less time watching presentation ..no?
Fair Play
Re Is this really your quote?
“Do you really think that some priest can give directives to a doctor? Is this priest the High Priest/ Great Physician?”
That question shows your arrogance.
===========================================================
No it does not It indicates that we have, as usual a square peg in a round hole.
Re why can’t the priest give directives to a doctor?
My question is why should he have to ? Why is he there at all?
After all is that not a political appointment? On what medical merit does he have that position.
When I trained and worked at QEH the system worked well asnd the doctors made certain decisions
The problem with the Hospital and surgery is that there has never been enough anaesthetists, or full time anaesthetists When these persons reach their cut off point—everything done! To get around the problem you cite, my Registrar and I often worked late into
So now we have an average priest dictating to formerly average students who barely got through medical school. We are in deep doo do. it seems. LOL
How do know that they barely get through medical school? Did you set or mark their exam papers or conducted their oral exams.
Re It is a learning situation where you take living human bodies and make mistakes like any other person. As you get older and more experience from making those mistakes then your arrogance cannot be controlled. There is nothing magical about a doctor
How is this different to any other vocation or profession?
When the politically appointed priest sets his policy, and take away the perks from the consultants, will the priest come and do the medical work? Call me arrogant, but I am telling you the facts! You seem to forget that you are dealing with men. They are no less greedy than the carpenter or plumber or insurance agent or any one else. There is nothing magical about a doctor. There is nothing different about doctors they come from the same society as you do. They have no importance at all to you………until the day you or your relative get sick.
Newton
It seems that the old guard has retired and you are in the hands of different men to those under whom I trained.
The surgical consultants even back in the 60’s and 70’s put private patients before public patients. It used to work well then1
Has it occurred to you that MORE Bajans have decided or can afford to be PRIVATE PATIENTS TO DAY?
Re In de private sector my contract can be terminated with due notice.
So can the doctor’s who work in the public service!
Re Is Jerry so special who overcharging people so special! That is a matter that is decided by his peers- not by the public! Only telling you the facts!
Re $30,000 fuh bracatheraphy he charging for an hour procedure. How much should he charge? Do I detect a hint of envy? Some of your average classmates who barely got good grades by using pass papers and labs and who barely got through medical school dare to charge such fees?
Well call the priest to do the surgery and the healing nuh! LOL
David /Enuff
You are probably correct when you opine that this is not a breaking up of the ‘Cartel’, but a mere replacement of members of the group with your own. Policy NOT personnel changes will break up the cartel.
Whereas the Opposition ought not to turn this into a political football, there is a need to correct many things first before you jump in at replacing personnel or policies that have been practiced for a reason.
The Board may have guts ie pendulous abdomens pregnant with adipose tissue but there seems to be a lack of tact and betz cells on display, and even a priest!
There is definitely a way to improve Health in Barbados and in the Hospital, but unless one has a PhD in hospital Management and a heap of unnecessary qualifications, one can not get the chance to participate in the process of change.
What is clear is that no priest and the emotional rants of folk on BU will not help!
This is so very funny.
@ GP
You know that the bushman like you and admires your Crumpton Street brains, however it may be useful for you to hold back your condemnations of ‘the priest’ until you get the big picture GP.
The Bushman did no know this priest from Adam until his appearance on TV last night, (cause you know that my bush theories don’t go down too well with wanna church people LOL),
HOWEVER what the man said essentially was that the Board was, as a matter of POLICY, seeking to change the hospital from being DOCTOR centric to being PATIENT centric.
….now GP, you could talk what you like, but ALL Bajans know that this is needed.
….The only problem is who got the BALLS to tell people like you and Jerry……. and it look like the Priest aint frighten for none of wanna….(must be why the DLP bring a priest to chair that board LOL – to deal with the demons….LOl)
Considering that the PEOPLE of Barbados pays for the education of 95% of all our doctors, Bush Tea has to support the Priest over both GP and Jerry….. PATIENTS FIRST.
@GP
Guy (Chairman) is not only a priest (not meant to trivialize his role), he has worked at CXC for many years in another capacity. This is a man who has travelled and has worldly experience. Another quality about Guy is that he has ‘balls’, he will not be intimidated by the situation. Another thing going for him is that he has a minister who is the son of a fisherman. While BU may not agree with all of Donville’s decision making, in the two we have the makings of a last man standing situation to break this mess up at the QEH. For too long the QEH has been a political hotbed. We have people sabotaging the plant, dead people waking out of the morgue, consultants using the QEH facilities at the expense of others etc.
Bring it on as they say!
Let us not be too distracted by this talk about the Board and the Minister. The hospital also has a management team, headed by a CEO. Note that the news reports stated that both Dr. Rambarat and Dr. Emtage were summoned to the CEO’s office to receive their walking papers. Unless information to the contrary comes to light, I am happy to assume that the recommendation to sever the contracts of these consultants was made to the Board by management based on solid reasons. It is not the Board or the Minister giving instructions to doctors, it is the management team giving instructions to doctors (or it should be).
I do not know the CEO’s qualifications, but I assume that he was hired because he is eminently qualified for the position.
@Brutus
We have to focussed on the management structure at the QEH of which the Board is an integral part. Have you considered the CEO could have acted on instructions from the Board? This is Barbados, senior management and the Board will not be that far apart on the org chart.
From the Barbados Government Information Service:
______________________
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital has a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He is Dr. Dexter James who assumed office on October 1.
Dr James was previously employed with the Caricom Community Secretariat (CARICOM) as the Director of Corporate Services. Prior to this appointment, he spent the last 15 years at the forefront of public sector management and health reform in the Caribbean.
He also held a number of chief executive officer positions in the public health systems of Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, and Anguilla and has provided technical support to regional agencies such as the Pan-American Health Organisation and the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre.
Dr. James is a member of the Advisory Committee of Accreditation Canada (the body responsible for accrediting all healthcare organisations in Canada), which is currently developing an accreditation programme for the international community.
He is also a Certified Management Accountant (CMA) with an MBA in Health Management and a doctorate in Management Studies, with emphasis on public health sector reform. Dr. James has a special interest in performance management, organisational transformation and strategic management.
According to Dr. James, his vision for the QEH is “to further the implementation of the health reform programme, while at the same time re-orienting the hospital around performance.
“This will require a comprehensive review of operating systems and processes and the involvement of all stakeholders, which it is anticipated, will lead to the improvement in the operations and management of the hospital and quality patient-centred care,” he said.