“We will continue to have challenges with bed capacity until something is actually substantively done about it”
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — As the country continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic, Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) Chief Hospital Administrator Mary Walker indicated there are still challenges with emergency medical services (EMS) response times, bed capacity and labor capacity.
In recent weeks, there have been several reports of slowed response times from EMS.
Eyewitness News understands that paramedics are also being held up at Accident & Emergency (A&E) because there aren’t any available beds and patients cannot be removed off of gurneys to respond to additional matters.
During a press conference earlier this week, Walker explained that the matter is a circular issue in the public health sector.
She said when there is an overrun of individuals at A&E, this usually holds up use of the gurneys and patients are kept on them until beds become available.
“We do have and continue to be faced with a challenge of persons having to be admitted for COVID,” Walker said.
“That means that the testing has to be carried out as per normal to ensure that we do not admit persons to a unit that are COVID-positive, where the other persons can be put at risk.”
Walker noted that sometimes when individuals are initially tested, they may receive a false negative and then five to seven days later, they test positive for the virus.
“That has repeated itself several times in the healthcare facilities of this country and as a consequence, when that happens, the patient populations are then quarantined,” she continued.
“That has resulted in us having to not admit further patients to that unit until all persons on the unit are cleared.
“Yes, we are having challenges with bed capacity. We will continue to have challenges with bed capacity until something is actually substantively done about it.
“We are also facing challenges with nurses and other allied health professionals.
“We’ve started this fight with COVID with these limitations and we continue this fight with COVID with these same limitations.”
The hospital administrator said health officials are continuously working to address ongoing concerns.
“These are the same players doing all of this same work, responding to the regular demands of healthcare for this country as well as the COVID challenge as well as now the immunization exercise,” Walker added.
“We are all working cohesively together as a public health team.”
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