Tue Dec 10, 2013

Editor: I would like through this medium to express my dissatisfaction with the services rendered to the people of Fancy by the staff at the Fancy Clinic. Time and time again I have heard persons complain about the attitude and unprofessional conduct of the workers there. Unfortunately my family and my 95-year-old grandmother, to be precise, were subjected to that kind of treatment.{{more}}

On the 16th of November, the nurse was called to look at my grandmother’s foot. From all appearances, it was badly infected. They did not respond. A call was then made to the Accident and Emergency Department in Kingstown, who called the clinic. That was when they responded. They came with attitudes unbecoming of nurses; they were vexed because the call was made to Kingstown. One of them was very verbose and disrespectful to a family member who lives with my grandmother.

The nurses claim that my grandmother’s foot condition didn’t warrant us calling Accident and Emergency. When asked what happened to her foot, then why it looks like that, they claim they don’t know. It took someone who is not health trained to say it looks like gangrene, which was verified to be so, when Grandma was taken to the hospital. I beg here to ask the question, how come the trained staff nurse didn’t know it was gangrene.

The reading public needs to know that my grandma didn’t have diabetes nor high blood pressure. Her foot condition didn’t turn gangrene overnight. The nurses failed big time in their duty and responsibility to give proper health care to my grandma’s foot because they did not look at her foot when they should and how they should.

My grandma’s foot condition started out as poor blood circulation in the big toe. One of the nurses said to cold press it. Isn’t it comical and laughable hearing that from a trained nurse? How can you cold press a part of the body where the blood is not circulating? Cold pressing doesn’t help blood circulation, it does the opposite. This nurse doesn’t inspire the confidence in me that she knows what she is doing.

The nurses claimed that grandma’s foot was no big thing, but yet when she was taken to the Georgetown hospital the next day, she was sent straight into town. She was taken to Georgetown in a private vehicle, because the nurses were reluctant to ask for the service of the ambulance. On Monday, November 18, her foot was amputated and she died four days later, because the gangrene had already spread too far.

The reading public needs to know that my grandma lives within close proximity of the clinic. It pains me to know that my grandma was treated with scorn and disdain by one of her very own.

I would also like to know why the nurse hasn’t taken up residence at the clinic house. Work was recently done on the house and from all appearances it looks ready to live in.

I’m of the opinion that the nurses at the clinic are not dedicated to their job and the Ministry should do proper screening of the persons whom they train as nurses.

The health authorities need to know too that the nurses sometimes turn the clinic into a hair salon, where they braid their hair when they don’t have anything to do. The clinic, most times, operates the same hours as the school. Persons get to the clinic for 8 o’clock and have to wait a long time for it to open.

The State cannot afford to pay persons salaries who are lazy and inefficient in these hard times. The people of the remote area deserve better.

An ex- resident