EWMSC to open chemotherapy unit before year-end

Shas­tri Boodan

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

Can­cer pa­tients re­ceiv­ing on­co­log­i­cal care at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC) will soon be able to ac­cess chemother­a­py treat­ment at the in­sti­tu­tion, with a med­ical on­col­o­gy unit ex­pect­ed to open be­fore the end of the year.

North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) chair­man Dr Tim Gopeesingh an­nounced on Thurs­day that the Au­thor­i­ty was work­ing to­wards es­tab­lish­ing the unit, which will ex­pand the range of can­cer treat­ment ser­vices avail­able at the hos­pi­tal.

Gopeesingh made the an­nounce­ment dur­ing a tour of sec­tions of the EWM­SC with NCRHA board mem­bers, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Bhadase See­ta­hal-Ma­haraj and se­nior ex­ec­u­tive med­ical of­fi­cers.

He said can­cer surg­eries were al­ready be­ing per­formed at the hos­pi­tal across sev­er­al spe­cial­ties, and the in­tro­duc­tion of chemother­a­py would al­low pa­tients to ac­cess ad­di­tion­al treat­ment at the same in­sti­tu­tion.

“We are now go­ing to be open­ing up an on­co­log­ic unit here so that our can­cer pa­tients who need chemother­a­py will be able to have their chemother­a­py treat­ment right here at Er­ic Williams,” he said.

The tour in­clud­ed the hos­pi­tal’s med­ical and an­giog­ra­phy units, car­diac catheter­i­sa­tion lab­o­ra­to­ry and op­er­at­ing the­atres.

Gopeesingh said the NCRHA board be­gan vis­it­ing in­sti­tu­tions un­der its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty about three months ago to as­sess their op­er­a­tions, man­age­ment, in­fra­struc­ture, work­load and chal­lenges af­fect­ing pa­tients and health­care work­ers.

The NCRHA over­sees the EWM­SC, Mt Hope Women’s Hos­pi­tal, Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal and 15 dis­trict health fa­cil­i­ties, in­clud­ing the Ch­agua­nas Health Cen­tre and St Joseph En­hanced Health Cen­tre.

He said the vis­its were in­tend­ed to give board mem­bers a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the chal­lenges fac­ing the in­sti­tu­tions and in­form de­ci­sions and rec­om­men­da­tions to im­prove health­care de­liv­ery.

The EWM­SC records ap­prox­i­mate­ly 160,000 vis­its an­nu­al­ly to its med­ical and sur­gi­cal out­pa­tient clin­ics alone. Gopeesingh ac­knowl­edged that the out­pa­tient ar­eas were se­vere­ly over­crowd­ed but said the Au­thor­i­ty was mov­ing to ease con­ges­tion by pro­vid­ing ad­di­tion­al clin­ic space on the low­er floors.

He said six of the hos­pi­tal’s eight op­er­at­ing the­atres were ful­ly func­tion­al, with the re­main­ing two ex­pect­ed to be­come op­er­a­tional with­in the next two weeks. Three ad­di­tion­al op­er­at­ing the­atres in the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment are ex­pect­ed to be op­er­a­tional with­in a month.

The ad­di­tion­al the­atres will ac­com­mo­date pro­ce­dures that do not re­quire the main op­er­at­ing the­atres.

The adult Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment sees ap­prox­i­mate­ly 200 pa­tients dai­ly, with about 70 re­quir­ing ad­mis­sion. The pae­di­atric de­part­ment sees ap­prox­i­mate­ly 150 pa­tients dai­ly, with about 15 re­quir­ing ad­mis­sion.

Gopeesingh said 50 ad­di­tion­al bed spaces were be­ing brought in­to ser­vice fol­low­ing the re­lo­ca­tion of psy­chi­atric ser­vices to Ari­ma. The Au­thor­i­ty has al­so pur­chased 25 new beds to re­place di­lap­i­dat­ed ones in the hos­pi­tal wards.

He said the NCRHA was ex­tend­ing sur­gi­cal ser­vices to week­ends and, when nec­es­sary, un­til 6 pm to com­plete op­er­at­ing lists, while main­tain­ing emer­gency ser­vices through­out the night. The Au­thor­i­ty was al­so work­ing to in­crease emer­gency and uro­log­i­cal surg­eries at the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal.

Gopeesingh said the EWM­SC per­forms ap­prox­i­mate­ly 240 car­diac by­pass op­er­a­tions and 1,500 an­giogra­phies an­nu­al­ly, help­ing to re­duce wait­ing lists for car­diac sur­gi­cal in­ter­ven­tions.

He added that the EWM­SC re­mained the on­ly ter­tiary-lev­el in­sti­tu­tion in the NCRHA of­fer­ing com­plex neu­ro­sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dures, joint re­place­ments and in­ter­ven­tion­al ra­di­o­log­i­cal pro­ce­dures.

Gopeesingh al­so said the Au­thor­i­ty had com­plet­ed 29 of the 52 health-sec­tor com­mit­ments out­lined in the UNC’s elec­tion man­i­festo and was con­tin­u­ing work to­wards ful­fill­ing the re­main­ing pledges.

He said the NCRHA would con­tin­ue en­gag­ing med­ical, nurs­ing and al­lied health pro­fes­sion­als as part of its ef­forts to im­prove pa­tient care through­out the re­gion.