Authorities at wits end to deal with health crisis whilst Parliamentarians enjoy millions in health insurance covers that enable them to travel overseas for top-notch treatment .
AUTHORITIES are at their wits end to deal with the worsening health crisis that has engulfed the nation.
And while the nation suffers, elected representatives are enjoying millions of dollars in health insurance covers, which enable them to travel overseas for such treatment.
To witness what is truly a national catastrophe, all one has to do is to visit the National Referral Hospital (NRH) to witness first hand the unfolding national crisis.
I did last Monday.
And this is what I found. As one photograph tells a story of a thousand words, walk with me through the Emergency Ward of the level of Government neglect of its only hospital in the country.
According to doctors, the National Referral Hospital (NRH) has literally run out of beds for young and old who are sick and dying.
“This has been going on for months. There is nothing we can do about it.
“We are doing our best to deal with emergency cases as they come in but you can only do as much. It is a national crisis. And it is getting worse by the day,” one doctor told me.
A walk through the Emergency Ward as I did yesterday confirm the sorry state of affairs that NRH is in. While doctors and nurses do their best to deal with each case, they are simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem they are dealing with.
The moment one enters the Emergency Ward, you are greeted by patients lying all over the floor.
In the corridor leading to the main Emergency area where patients are normally treated, there is standing room only on both sides.
It would seem the Ministry of Health and Medical Services and the National Referral Hospital Administration have come their wits’ end. No one, it seems, knows where help is going to come from.
Lack of basic medications such as malarial tablets and Panadol only exacerbates the worsening national health crisis.
The irony of all this is that while the ordinary people suffer, the nation’s elected representatives have a health insurance cover to be treated abroad at the expense of taxpayers.
By Alfred Sasako
