LETTER: Hospital Staff Pleads for Better Conditions and Treatment

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SLB-MSJMC

Dear Editor,

I would love to be able to express myself anonymously as I would love for the public and the powers to know that the hospital is being managed is in poor taste. CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR WHATS APP GROUP

Now I offer no excuses for how the doctors and nurses sometimes react to the general public.

A profession that is supposed to be done with compassion and true love for sick people has now just become a job to some of these women and men who chose it because of what I mentioned earlier but now are only doing it because it’s just a job.

The pay is terrible, let’s make no jokes about how awful the pay at our only hospital is.

Ends are not meeting and management only seems to care about those in their offices.

Unfortunately, if you do not have a bachelor’s degree or higher you are subjected to the worst treatment.

I often see these wonderful posts on the Mount Saint John Medical Center Facebook page that leave me wondering if it’s the same institution I work for.

The facade management paints is that we are a happy bunch, we are rewarded for our hard work or that we are cherished employees but sorry to say this, NOTHING TARL GO SO.

We have an HR who should be responsible for our happiness and general well being at this institution but we do not know her.

Higher management fraternizes with certain staff and they benefit because of it.

Once you are in the closed quarters of these people set in place to ensure that the hospital runs like a Well oiled machine, they instead diligently seek to push up these men and women who are deemed favorites.

Staff morale in teetering on the edge of poor and how staff engage with staff leaves the atmosphere thick with negative energy and full of malice. We are tired of all of it.

The building is still sweltering and the so called units they claimed were installed for our coolness – half were already donated by a local philanthropist months ago and the rest were first placed in the offices of management.

Aren’t the patients a priority? Aren’t the doctors and nurses worthy of working in better conditions.

The place is filthy as the cleaners pick and choose there they mop and where they sweep.

Their supervisors cannot control them so they operate by themselves as there is no direction they take.

The vents are moldy and some of us often has nasal issue or asthma attacks coming into the building.

The trash receptacles are all opened save for a few that I have never seen. You have to walk for ages to find a clean facility to use even as staff because there are no bathrooms for us specifically we are just using the same areas as the sick folk that visit the establishment. The sewage system stinks, how is this normal for a place that should save lives?

Urine and vomit are sometimes expelled on the floor and is never cleaned up right away.

The break room we were allotted is filthy and even the canteen needs a Facelift where cleanliness is concerned.

Some of us have spent years working here and we see no compensation for it.

We work all shifts including the grave yard shift where we should be paid extra as we are working past 12 AM and we still get the same money. How is this legal?

The worst mistake you can make is to work overtime as you are sometimes not paid for it for months. There is no one to speak for us, everything is passed down. Complaints are made excessively but no one seeks to make sure both sides are heard. It’s always one sided.

How can we fix this because for months the hospital has been the center of attention but what about the people that help run it?

Molwyn has been in and out of the institution for weeks. He has neither been friendly or accommodating and his whole atttidude shows that he is only visible because the hospital is failing.

We need help, we need better treatment or I fear what may happen and what has already been happening is the sick people who visit us will end up having to take care of themselves. It is a chain reaction which is inevitable.

Can we get somebody to assist us? We are in need of support and we need the public to help us with finding it.

Thank you.The Ill Treated

 

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8 COMMENTS

  1. Hmmmmmm. I don’t know who’s going to help. The powers that be just talk talk and pretend to be doing things after something happens or people begin to cry out. But after the noise dies down nothing. All Government ministry and place where people work is falling apart. And it’s all political. Some red people believe they can behave any old how to workers because the are red. Blue people sabotage everything to make red look bad. Playing games with poor people life. Antigua people just sit and take it like those women who have man beating them and still staying in the relationship because they are week. Lord help us in this place.

  2. Hopefully the Health Minister Molwyn Joseph will address these issues forthwith. He’s had more than enough time to do so.

    IT SEEMS LIKE HE DOESN’T CARE!

    Lack of pay and missing pay must be addressed now, and not in the future.

    And also, when you hear the disturbing stories about the vomit and filth in the hospital that can lead to spreading other diseases and viruses, you wonder why the Minister doesn’t ensure that there’s a team involved in the health and safety of patients and visitors.

    Molwyn Joseph’s attitude is a symptom of the ABLP’S overall governance in the country, and a clone of the Prime Minister’s nasty behaviour.

    Sadly, a government elected to SERVE, but has instead decided to DESTROY instead …

  3. I empathize with the author of this article; I hope they are aware that there is no saviour on a white steed who will come to their rescue. They are the only one that can help them, once they continue on their journey of self-improvement and pursue higher learning relentlessly the sky is literally the limit and being an employee until retirement may not be their destiny if they do not allow it to be.

    I find too many are focused on things of no substance and end up in crippling debt and toxic personal/professional relationships. Earth is spec in an almost endless universe, and this is not how humanity was meant to live but the powers that be deemed it so. Alan Watt once said – You will spend your whole life doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing which is stupid. Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.

  4. On one hand the author of this letter sounds like they have a motive but on the other, I do sympathize with the staff of SLBMC. From what I have seen, the staff is overwhelmed with work and the hours (24 hrs to 30 hrs ) the doctors put in, especially when they are on call is inhumane & antiquated …. The on call shifts need to be change to a 12 hr shift. The doctors will be less prone to errors.

  5. Downtrodden

    I agree with this writer 110%. I work in SLBMC. We have been out of A/C for months, since last year. The first set of A/C that was installed was donated since last year for the pediatric department. The second area to get A/C is the admin. Department and they are closed from 4:30 pm until the next morning. While patients, nurses and doctors suffocate and suffer in the emergency room. The administration department is cooling even when they are home in their beds. Remember these are persons who were working half day while the A/C was not functioning. What more advantage can we take in this place? Why must we suffer like this in our work place? Where is the Labour department, where is the union that we pay dues, on a monthly basis? Where is the SLBMC Board? We are humans and we deserve to be treated as such. My eyes are filled with tears as I write this comment. Lord, we need your divine intervention. We need help. Who will be the hero to help us? Who will save us from these demons in SLBMC. Who will be our advocate?

    The minister has been visiting for the past few weeks, when he is on island but he doesn’t speak to us. He pass us as if we are invisible and even when he speaks to us he doesn’t listen and pretend as if he has all the answers. If you stand up or talk back to him, he calls the PS and demand that you are transferred out of the hospital. Why are adults unable speak for themselves? Why is it a crime to speak on issues that affects our work place?

    Why have we been enslaved this way? We are highly educated, trained and qualified to do our duties. All we need is adequate, equitable working conditions. Why are some doing well, while others suffer and is at the brink of depression and committing suicide? We didn’t sign up for this. Heavenly Father help us.

    We have a medical Director. He flies out every other week and is being paid thousands of dollars to run the hospital and our system is about to collapse. Why are we paying him. He is the one you should transfer and fire. He is not doing his duty but because you hire him, you allow him to fill your head with lies, about other staff who is covering for him and trying their best to manage the hospital properly.

    Our MDs spends an hour in hospital and then they go to their private office to make their money while government is paying them thousands of poor people money to work in the hospital. Day after day, months after months year after year is the same thing.when? when? When? I could go on and on but this too will fall on deaf ears.

    I guess one day when all the staff report sick and no one shows up for work. Then the powers that be will pay attention.

    Heaven help us all.

    • How condescending, if as you say @ i agree, that when Molwyn Joseph visited in recent times he virtually ignored the hardworking medical staff is like a slap in the face

      Who do these cretinous politicians think they are?

      They were voted in to serve the electorate, not to act like out of touch prima-donnas.

      If they were doing the jobs they were elected to do, then acting like self important imbeciles wouldn’t matter in the slightest to hardworking Antiguans. Tarl!!!

      THESE GUYS NEED TO LEARN HOW TO BE HUMBLE.

  6. I ephathise with you my colleague and I assure you that the
    same can be said about the community nursing service and its management . The clinics are in a deplorable state played by mold , air quality issues , leaking and damaged roofs , rats and roaches infestations and the recurrent sewage stench. What’s next and sadly the management care less and view the situations with myopic lenses. Not even visits are made to the various deplorable departments when the complains are made. They are more comfortable sitting in the ac units in their offices and await phone calls which are most times not acknowledged. The management has made the system very difficult to work with. The staff is fed up. At least most. Guess the ones who find favor are treated better. Nurses have been asked to act and has not been paid. In fact the acting letters never written by the manager.
    Please don’t be fooled with the so called poly clinics because they both have several issues and challenges. Some one needs to pay attention and be held accountable.

    We have a new President and executive of the Antigua and Barbuda nurses association as well as a new ASHE. GET TO WOK SOONEST. WE NEED YOU TO WORK FOR US. THE TIME IS LONG GO

  7. I agree with my colleague 100%. Health care is not taken seriously in this country and everybody wants to go eye for with us nurses. Simple as basic oxygen therapy is not even in most clinics. Basic procedures that can and should be done in the clinic is not taking place due to lack of resources and that in turn put a strain on the hospital and in turn frustrate the patients and workers. Some of us worked tirelessly in covid between multipurpose center and airport and yet to be paid. Our heads including PNO and SPHN is to be blamed because they were the ones who called us out and up to this day not one of them can answer to where our monies are. People have alot to say about us, but if we were switch positions with some of you for an hour, most of you wouldn’t even survive. We are highly underpaid. Even that small Island of Monsterrat pays over $1500 of what we nurses are getting. It is alleged that the HR at MSJMC was making over 15,000 monthly and a specific secretary making $6000. Some of may not have a Bachelors degree because our e years and 6 minths training only gave us a diploma in nursing, but we were trained in all areas and anywhere in the world we as antiguans nurses go, they are happy to have us. When you realize hotel workers making double your salary for a month, it makes you wonder why choose nursing. The bigger heads from Matron, SPHN, PNO, ex -members of the nursing association do everything in the power to keep us down. Nobody fought and we pay dues every month. Unity is strength and those old nurses mend in the ways and the way the system is setup, we have to go thro them to get what we want. Nurses are leaving left right and center and they are playing a blind eye. It’s doesn’t affect them because they too don’t care. It’s time for nurses to take a stand. We were due a back pay since last September. “ALL MONIES WILL BE PAID BY SEPTEMBER 30” ex-president said in meeting last year. Up until this date nothing. It’s sad sad sad.

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