[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ust over a week ago, a colleague shared with me a story, one that is all too common here in Saint Lucia. He had been to at least three doctors, complaining of stomach pains and an irregular heartbeat. He was treated for acid reflux. Still, my friend’s condition did not improve; it seemed to be worsening, even as he accepted medication for acid reflux.
“One day, as I was walking from police headquarters on Bridge Street in Castries to the nearby bank, I felt a sharp pain in my stomach. I was also having difficulty breathing,” said my friend. “At that point I decided to get in touch with my son in the United States. He had been advising me for months to come to Atlanta to see a doctor.”
A few days later my friend travelled to Atlanta. On the day of his doctor’s appointment he collapsed in the hospital’s parking lot and had to be rushed into the emergency unit for heart surgery. It was discovered that he had developed serious complications with his arteries, which could’ve killed him but for the emergency surgery.
Countless other Saint Lucians, who had been wrongly diagnosed or simply given Panadol, were not so lucky. For as many years that I have been in journalism, I have never heard of a doctor being sued for malpractice (save for a recent case in 2017); nor have I heard about medical licences being revoked. Getting doctors, lawyers or engineers to comment on anything “suspect” within their profession is as difficult as getting Drake to confess his obsession with Rhianna. It seems the objective of local doctors is to protect members of the brotherhood at all cost. I have vivid memories of a case in 1999, when a child was taken to the dentist for what was supposed to be a simple extraction. On the advice of the dentist, anaesthesia was administered by his assistant. That was the last time the parents would see their daughter alive. She never regained consciousness.
The story featured in the STAR and the authorities were repeatedly called upon to answer questions as well as to address a worsening health crisis. Yes folks, “crisis” has been we business from way back. Some of the horror stories, including the aforementioned, inspired winning calypsos. Surely we all recall Tricky’s ‘Doctors Mistakes’ relating to four mysterious deaths at Victoria Hospital. The relatives of Samantha Atkins, who died there after birthing twins,
and Daniel Esnard, a stabbing victim who died after being stitched up and sent home in 2014, are among the stories documented by the STAR. There are a litany of such stories, some even more macabre and horrific than anything Stephen King (the author, not the doctor) could ever imagine.
And while much has been said on political platforms and manifestos about healthcare in Saint Lucia, there has never been an organisation or institution espousing the strong sentiments of the public or putting pressure on any government to get us out of this cesspool. Even when there was an outcry in 2012 about the government’s imposition of VAT on medicine, the Saint Lucia Medical and Dental Association appeared to be treading over-cautiously. I recall interviewing Dr. King at the time. He was quite vociferous in his independent capacity.
The Saint Lucia Medical and Dental Association existed as far back as 1983, I am told. But it appeared to operate more like a social club than any advocacy group. Never mind its stated policy on its website: “We are the national voice of physicians and we advocate on behalf of our members and the general public for access to an improved health-care system as well as provide leadership and guidance to medical practitioners.”
I would love to read some of these policy statements and hear some public speeches decrying what has passed all these years in our country for modern healthcare. I would also like to know when anything was said about the illegal practice of some eye-doctors refusing to give patients their prescriptions or why a full visit fee is charged patients for medical tests to be read to them.
For years the public has cried about malpractice, to no avail. What a surprise to hear the fuss about the SLMDA’s major public statement a few weeks ago, relating to the state of healthcare in Saint Lucia. According to the group’s leader, Alphonsus St. Rose, his organisation was disturbed by the “current state of emergency” (who declared it, and when?) regarding healthcare and our nation’s healthcare institutions, particularly Victoria and St. Jude hospitals.
Apparently it has only just dawned on the SLMDA that “the existing hospitals are in a most deplorable and unacceptable state of operation, with medical and non-medical staff understandably demotivated and morale at an all-time low”.
The statement failed miserably in putting the current situation into context, sticking to the point that the “crisis” we find ourselves in existed due to occurrences of the last eight years. I consider the SLMDA’s statement quite disingenuous, I having been privy to some of the facts—like so many other Saint Lucians. VH has been in a deplorable state for longer than the SLMDA has existed. As for the “new” hospitals, they were promised a lot longer than two years ago.
Dr. Stephen King, who is a member of the SLMDA, confirmed during one of the SLMDA’s recent PR efforts on radio and TV stations that a “crisis” already existed back when approval was given to move from a 162-bed VH, where many of Dr. St. Rose’s members operate under limitations to a 122-bed OK-EU. There was no mention of the inadequacy of that facility by the SLMDA.
A 2011 Action Programme for Saint Lucia report states, in part: “The Government of Saint Lucia is committed to the United Nations Declaration that health is a human right . . . The construction of the New National Hospital will be completed by the end of April 2012.” Four years later and months before the 2016 general elections, the former administration held a lavish ceremony to name a yet to be commissioned OK-EU, spending over $100,000 on the occasion. We have also not heard much from the SLMDA about the 1997 strategic healthcare reform project, or about the national healthcare programme whose reports and brochures are collecting dust, who knows where.
In the Caribbean several surveys indicate that healthcare is not the number one concern occupying the minds of people; unemployment and crime rank higher. Is it because we have become tolerant of the fact that our healthcare will never be given deserved attention, except by politicians with one thing on their minds?
In 2014 Melanius Alphonse, who describes himself as a management and development consultant and columnist, wrote: “The truth of the matter is that Saint Lucia’s fiscal challenges are managed by a finance minister with arcane economics and financial management skills; while the public medical resources are equally in the hands of an incompetent minister of health. These two scenarios have worsened the ability to absorb the volume of highly trained medical professionals that are required in the primary health facilities on the island, namely, St. Jude Hospital in Vieux Fort, Dennery Hospital, the Soufriere hospital, Victoria Hospital; and now that the new hospital in Castries is scheduled to be commissioned, this poses a more complex challenge.”
On the occasion of his aforementioned talk-show appearance, Stephen King (no, not the horror monger) quoted prime minister Allen Chastanet as saying, “The health system in Saint Lucia cannot continue as it is,” adding, “And we both concur.” The all-important question is: What do we do about it that will not worsen an already intolerable situation?
