MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Chief executive officer at the Mandeville Regional Hospital Alwyn Miller has defended the decision not to allow motorists to access the facility through a maintenance gate at Hargreaves Avenue.

Miller pointed to security and speeding among the reasons for access being restricted through the gate.

“It is closed at 7:00 pm, which has been the standard for many years, it is a maintenance gate, it is not a gate for the public for a number of reasons. When we have that gate open and people traverse there we have issues with theft of staff property, because that gate takes them directly through the staff accommodation areas, you have that issue of criminal activity,” Miller told the
Jamaica Observer on Monday.

He was responding to a submission to the
Observer by a member of the public who argued that the Hargreaves entrance should be open to emergency situations and hospital staff at all times.

“Use of this entrance is restricted to hospital staff and is only opened and manned by security personnel between the hours of 7:00 am to 7:00 pm. The solution is to have this entrance accessible 24 hours a day for hospital staff as well as members of the public with a health emergency. By doing this, in an emergency, there would be two choices from which to determine the quickest route to the hospital,” the letter writer argued.

The author further argued that the travel time for on-call doctors was being extended because they cannot access the Hargreaves Avenue gate.

“In particular, a journey from the home of one critical member of the surgery team that normally takes five minutes using the main entrance to the hospital ended up taking 20 minutes because of the new traffic lights and one-way system. This extra 15 minutes could have been fatal. Thankfully, the actions of experienced senior staff members and two junior surgeons saved the day while they waited for the arrival of the delayed member of the surgery team and a tragedy was averted,” the letter read in part.

However, Miller reiterated that the Hargreaves entrance leads to a staff dormitory, renal and ophthalmology clinics.

“Patients going there are visually impaired many of them are elderly patients. Also, patients going to the renal unit and when you have people driving like that through this section of a hospital it poses a threat both to patients and staff,” he said.

He added that the hospital staff had only complained to him about the exiting the hospital.

“When they are leaving work they want the ease of driving through that gate, because it is shorter to get to their home, it is when they are leaving not when they are coming to look after any patient. That is the only complaint that I got as it pertains to medical personnel,” added Miller.

Concerns were raised about the access to the hospital last December following the implementation of a one-way system on Caledonia Road where the facility’s main access is situated.