A heartbreaking photograph of a mother nursing her newborn under a bed at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) surfaced on the internet Thursday. It must be utterly distressing for a mother filled with joy at giving new life but then have to endure poor conditions at the very medical facility she has put the safety of herself and that of her new bundle of job in. Such poor conditions are no doubt placing mothers and babies at obvious medical risks.
On Christmas Day 2015, no other than Head of State President David Granger and First Lady Sandra Granger both visited the maternity ward at the Georgetown Public Hospital where the president vowed in the presence of Public Health Minister Dr George Norton to have improved conditions at the medical facility.
As a matter of fact the President on that occasion said it is part of his job as President to be at the hospital on Christmas morning, not only to bring cheer but also to have a first-hand look at the challenges patients experience. His exact words were: “I will be working with the Minister of Health to improve the circumstances under which you work and under which mothers have to give birth. This is where life starts and if you don’t ensure you have a safe environment, that the mothers are in a comfortable environment and the staff have the resources they need to do their work, we are likely to have problems.”
The obvious question now is: “What happened, Mr President and Dr Norton?” Why are our new mothers being forced to share beds, even sleep on chairs and even more upsetting forced to sleep under a bed in the maternity ward of one of Guyana’s primary public health institutions?
GPHC is where 60 per cent of babies are born in Guyana and surely someone must be held accountable for humiliating and reducing our mothers to this extent. One would have expected that within a reasonable timeframe, the reported challenges the new administration claimed it inherited from the previous administration at the GPHC maternity ward would have been addressed.
As a matter of fact, four months in, with million being awarded to the Public Health Ministry in the 2016 National Budget but yet still nothing is done. Earlier this year, the Public Health Minister himself promised 50 new beds for the facility, declaring that “sharing beds would be a thing of the past” but yet today we degrade our new mothers as the issue persists.
There is no doubt the GPHC maternity ward needs improvements and in moving forward better management is certainly needed at the facility to develop services offered.
More resources would solve to a great extent some of the problems in maternity services at GPHC. There needs to be recognition of the needs of maternity services and those needs must be given higher priority when resource allocation decisions are taken.
Learning from adverse incidents is one of the key components in moving forward and as such to improve the management and general conditions at the GPHC maternity ward feedback is needed from patients.
Mothers must be able to report unsafe situations and their treatment at the facility so that in future solid action and change for the better is instilled.
At present there is a noticeable inadequacy in management and poor staff–management relationships at GPHC and these are what leads to poor public health services as what is currently happening at the maternity ward.
Change is need at the GPHC maternity ward and this change must be rendered sooner rather than later. What has occurred to our new mothers at that medical facility is downright inhumane and more so a great embarrassment to the management of GPHC.
It is time to stop the “photo-op” with new born babies and implement strategies that would improve the conditions at maternity facilities.
