Same-day surgeries at Couva Hospital – SWRHA hiring more nurses

An ambulance enters the compound of the Couva Hospital and Multi Training facility. - File photo

THE South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) has begun hiring more nurses in order to assist with same-day surgeries which have commenced at the Couva Hospital.

Responding to questions from Trinidad and Tobago Registered Nurses Association (TTRNA) president Idi Stuart at the authority's public board meeting at SAPA on December 2, SWRHA chairman Anil Gosine said 40 nurses have already been interviewed, and more would be brought on board over the coming months.

He said the Ministry of Health has assured it would provide funding for the initial tranche of nursing staff.

With SWRHA resources being used at the Couva Hospital, Stuart questioned whether the facility was now under its management. Chairman Gosine said this RHA was only lending assistance.

"Even though South West has been doing a lot of the groundwork, and it's because we did the commissioning in 2014/2015, we are not the RHA that is running it. It is being run under the Ministry of Health.

"Fortunately, we have the South West, which has the expertise, I don't know, I can't say about the RHAs, and they count on us. We see the merits in having it going in, and we have started only surgeries at this point in time."

He said there were at most 15 nurses stationed at Couva.

During the question-and-answer segment, Gosine also revealed the authority was actively examining the possibility of incorporating a scaled-down burns service as part of the Couva Hospital's expanding surgical programme.

SWRHA Director of Health, Dr Anand Chattergoon, explained that the challenge with providing a dedicated burns centre service is that the country records on average two severe cases annually, too few to keep the specialist staff required to man such a centre.

"The severe burns require doctors with special skills, which we don’t have, and nurses with special skills, whom we don’t also have. And the reason for that is the doctors and nurses do not stay with us because they don’t see enough, and therefore they go to other places."

He added, "We've looked at it and we felt that the burns ward, which we do have, can take care of the superficial burns, but the severe ones, we feel the best thing to do is to send them abroad and give them the best chance of survival."

He said severe cases (third-degree burns) are airlifted to the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida.

Singh, however, urged renewed attention to the issue due to the volume of petrochemical and heavy-industrial operations nearby in Point Lisas.

Same-day surgeries began on November 28 at the Couva Hospital as part of a phased approach to fully operationalising the facility. At the time, Minister of Health Dr Lackram Bodoe told Newsday that the next step would see specialised paediatric outpatient clinics.