Doctors in North East Region resume elective surgeries

Days after doctors resumed elective surgeries at Kingston Public Hospital (KPH), their colleagues in the North East Regional Health Authority (NEHRA) have made a similar decision.
   
The Medical Association of  Jamaica (MAJ) confirmed on Monday that the doctors had returned because their demand for additional supplies to be used in surgeries has been partially met.     
   
The North East Region includes facilities such as Port Maria Hospital and St Ann's Bay Hospital.   
   
Shortly after the release of  the results of a widely publicised health audit, doctors at KPH began performing only emergency surgeries.
It was reported that, due to the short supply of  some items needed for surgeries, doctors refrained from performing operations to avoid possible liability.
   
Dr. Myrton Smith, MAJ President, speaking on RJR's Beyond the Headlines, on Monday, confirmed that some of  the essential items needed are now in stock, and therefore, according to him, the doctors are comfortable, once again, to perform surgical duties.
   
Dr. Smith declared, however, that the long term situation of uncertainty is untenable and needs to be corrected.

"Certainly, at the KPH, some of the services were going to be curtailed, and limited to dire emergencies only in the interim, until the supplies were increased; and I gather that there were some increases in the supplies to that area," he reported.

Despite that short term outcome at KPH and in the North East Region, he stressed that "this needs to be sustainable and sustained."
                               
One of  the revelations from the audit of  public hospitals was that doctors were re-using disposable items to treat patients, because of supply shortages.