Doctors lament absence of CT scan machines at public hospitals

Observer Monday Exchange

BY NADINE WILSON Observer staff reporter wilsonn@jamaicaobserver.com

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

MEMBERS of the Jamaica Medical Doctors Association (JMDA) yesterday bemoaned the absence of functioning Computed Tornography (CT) multi-detector imaging machines in the nation's public hospitals which, they insist, is central to the saving of lives.

President of the JMDA Dr Shane Alexis expressed his desire to see the situation resolved, while making a presentation on health care reform to reporters and editors at the weekly Observer Monday Exchange at the newspaper's Beechwood Avenue head office.

"There are no functioning CT scans in any public hospital in Jamaica today," he said.

His statement comes more than three months after the Observer reported that none of the island's top three public hospitals — Kingston Public Hospital and the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), both in Kingston, and the Cornwall Regional Hospital in St James — were in possession of a functioning CT scan machine.

As a result of the absence of functional CT scans in the public sector, public relations officer for the JMDA Dr Tahira Redwood said patients had to be referred to private health care facilities for examination.

"Because of the lack of maintenance (and) because we don't have the funds to maintain the CT scan, we have to send them somewhere private to get the CT scan that they need," she said.

The South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA) has said the referring public hospitals were responsible for footing the bill for the more seriously ill patients who have to go to the private health facilities to get a scan done.

But secretary for the JMDA, Dr Twesige Mugisa-Malcolm, said sending a patient to do a CT scan elsewhere is not a feasible solution to the current situation.

"There are some instances where there is an immediate need and you cannot be transported from one facility to another, and whatever has to happen has to happen right there (at the hospital)," she said.

Second vice-president for the JMDA, Dr Dane Miller, said the absence of CT scan machines has placed further stress on medical practitioners who are already being forced to improvise due to the lack of essential equipment in the island's hospitals.

"We are in a service where CT scan is essential to what is done, and right now at the University [Hospital], it has been expressed and it is a fear of mine, that the MRI machine that is there is going to come under more pressure because we have nothing else to use," he said.

The cost of repairing a CT scan machine at the UHWI could amount to $2.4 million, while it would cost $1.5 million and $1.6 million at KPH and Cornwall Regional Hospital respectively. KPH alone received between 400 and 450 referrals for CT scans prior to the breakdown of the machine in March of this year.

Dr Alexis said instead of giving excuses for the breakdown of the machines, the Government needs to be unveiling some additional machines to take health care in the island to another level.

"You can't explain parts to the family of a patient who had just died, you cannot explain parts to a patient who may have some metastasis — either a spread of a cancer to their brain or any other part of their body — because you are guessing because you don't know," he said.

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Doctors lament absence of CT scan machines at public hospitals