THE Medical Association of Jamaica (MAJ) yesterday painted an ugly picture of the Victoria Jubilee Maternity Hospital, saying government has allowed the facility to run down and languish in a state of disrepair.

Dr Alverston Bailey, president of the MAJ – a grouping of senior doctors – told reporters that the Jubilee Hospital can no longer guarantee quality health care to its patients due to the number of inefficiencies at the facility.

Dr Bailey, who was addressing a press briefing in Kingston, said elevators at the Victoria Jubilee have been malfunctioning for more than 20 years; there has been contamination of the operating theatre by roaches and bird droppings, inconsistencies of medical supplies and the lack of essential equipment, including ventilators for critically ill patients, while the suction machine has been malfunctioning.

“The state of affairs at the hospital is unacceptable, embarrassing and demoralising and must be addressed immediately by the South East Regional Health Authority, whose responsibility it is to acquire, maintain and repair medical equipment and the physical plant at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital,” Dr Bailey said.

“The medical and nursing staff at the hospital are faced with a myriad of challenges,” said Dr Bailey.

The press conference comes on the heels of the recent death of a baby at the hospital, which was blamed on the breakdown of the steriliser, which had forced the hospital to postpone a C-Section operation on the child’s mother.

Meantime, Dr Douglas McDonald, senior medical officer at the Jubilee Hospital, said the malfunctioning elevators have seriously crippled the hospital’s ability to adequately serve its patients, who sometimes have to walk to the operating room. This, he said, should not occur under ideal circumstances.

“The operating theatres are located on the third floor… and to access the operating theatres one needs the elevators because the stairwells are very narrow and dangerous and stretchers cannot be taken up the stairwell,” he said. The elevators, he said, malfunction, at least twice weekly.

“When the elevators malfunction, patients for surgery have to be cancelled because the patients cannot access the operating theatre and even if the emergencies are taken to the operating threatres they cannot get back to the wards,” said Dr McDonald.

However, he said money has been allocated from the National Health Fund (NHF) to purchase two new elevators at a cost of $50 million.

In the meantime, Dr Kenneth Baugh, the Opposition’s spokesperson on health, yesterday called on the government to conduct a full inquiry into the state of the delivery of health care services in the public sector.

Doctors were also concerned about the critical shortage of nurses at Victoria Jubilee, which has forced the hospital to scale back some of its services.

The Victoria Jubilee Hospital is the largest women’s hospital in the English-speaking Caribbean, and serves the parishes of Kingston and St Andrew, parts of St Thomas and St Catherine, and receives referrals from doctors from other parts of Jamaica.