Boyce lauds steps to cut backlog at QEH

MINISTER of Health, John Boyce, has commended attempts by the management of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) to systematically cut down the backlog at the Martindale’s Road institution.

 

He made the comment in the Lower House on Tuesday as he highlighted the need to be flexible in one’s approach to the workplace. He noted that these attempts by the QEH will be beneficial to public and private patients, starting with the Ophthalmology Department.

 

“We expect over the next couple of months to be able to deal with 500 outstanding cataract operations in the hospital. So that the workers involved in executing this project, the consultants who work in these departments, are clear as to how they will be expected to operate and the kind of outcomes and the kind of measurement that will be associated with their work.

 

“This is very important because there are existing contracts at the hospital with these consultants, which now would have to be obviously tempered to achieve our objectives,” he said.

 

“The Director also made the point that we want to be able to start taking greater advantage of private sector opportunities for assisting Government in closing some of these outstanding matters. Over the last eight years certainly, and certainly before, in the delivery of health care in Barbados, we have been working towards a partnership with the private sector which sees some of the capacity that we need taken up, that we need to be filled being taken up by our private sector partners.”

 

He pointed specifically to the area of haemodialysis. “Where a number of our patients now will be dealt with under that arrangement and similarly in our elderly care programme we have contracts with employers, and these contracts obviously have to be carefully vetted to make sure that they meet the quality that we are accustomed to and at the same time the cost of the contracts fit within the means affordable by the Government of Barbados.”

 

The Health Minister said as officials look towards solutions, the point was made by Industry Minister Donville Inniss in the Lower Chamber, that persons are working more and more from their homes.

 

“More and more we have the ability through technology to work and achieve our outputs, our objectives from our homes. And this is being demonstrated again in health care, especially in the area of telemedicine, where as we continue to execute our programme in creating an environment which uses modern technology, we can have consultants commenting on patient conditions from remote locations.

 

“Once that image is made available, it can be made available wherever the consultant is, so we expect quicker and safer outcomes by the implementation of these measures. This is a development which is not going to stop. This technological improvement and innovation will not be contained and we may as well get accustomed in Barbados to the fact that we have to operate as a modern society if we are to remain part of this developing or developed world,” he said. (JH)