Secretary of Health at the Tobago House of Assembly, Dr. Faith Brebnor, is assuring the public that there is no outbreak at the Scarborough General Hospital.
Speaking to TTT News on Wednesday, Dr. Brebnor provided clarity on Tuesday evening’s Emergency Mode activation at the Scarborough General Hospital for 48 hours. She said this is a normal procedure.
“No, we do not have an outbreak of anything. Somebody asked me if we have COVID. No, it is nothing like that. This is really just a measure. It’s a normal thing. I’m sure if you actually ask quietly some of the RHAs in Trinidad, they would tell you they do it as well. But they probably don’t make a public statement about it. We’ve made a public statement because we actually want people to be conscious of that, you know, if you do not need to go to Accident and Emergency, don’t go up to Signal Hill. You could go to any of the health centres.”
The THA Secretary noted that Tuesday’s press release from the Tobago Regional Health Authority (TRHA) explained that wards are at maximum capacity.
“Emergency mode just means that the hospital will be focusing on critical issues. As it said in the release, if you are doing an elective surgery, for example, something that does not need to actually happen right now, we will ask you to put it off a little bit probably until next week or a little later, because what we are experiencing is very high occupancy rates in the hospital. Our wards are filled to capacity to the point where we’ve had people sitting in A&E who need to be admitted.”
According to the press release, every effort is being made to transfer stable patients to the Roxborough Hospital, where limited bed space remains available.
While some have expressed concern, Secretary Brebnor also noted the activation of emergency mode is a part of healthcare management.
“So this is just a very short-term measure for us to kind of balance it out a little bit to ensure that we get back to a space where we can manage the bed space that we have and so that we could ensure that those people who need critical care, we are able to provide it to them.”
The THA’s Minority Council has since questioned whether this occurrence reflects a lack of an emergency plan at the TRHA. However, Dr. Brebnor emphasised that the decision is in line with the Division and TRHA’s established protocols.
“Well, the fact that we are putting the hospital under emergency is really because the plan is in place and we are rolling out the plan. What people probably don’t recognise is that this is actually, we’ve been looking at the trends of our occupancy rates for the last couple of months. So this isn’t something that just happened last night, by the way. We’ve been looking at the trends that it has been moving up. What I’ve actually tasked the TRHA with is really putting together a longer term plan for us to treat with the fact that we seem to be having patients who are sicker, which means they have to be admitted. And when they are admitted, it means they have to stay on the wards longer.”
The Health Secretary also encouraged citizens to take care of their health and adopt necessary precautions.