Minister for Health Dr. Kenneth Darroux says an initiative by the Rotary Club of Portsmouth to provide EC$180,000 to update and and do renovation works at the Accident and Emergency room at the Reginald Fitzroy Armor (RFA) Hospital in Portsmouth has perfect timing.
According to Darroux, with the advent of the construction of the new Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH), district health centers and hospitals will be required to hold the strain until the new facility is completed.
“So this means we have to try to do this with minimal interruptions to health services,” he stated at a ceremony to mark the commencement of the project on Thursday. “so this means quite a few things that you would have to refer to PMH before you would probably have to see how you could handle it at the district level and of course we will try our best to provide you with the resources and I think what the Rotary Club is doing in Portsmouth is a very good start.”
The Minister for Health mentioned, in addition, that with a new agreement signed between Cuba and CARICOM in December 2014, within a few years Dominica will have a cadre of newly trained specialist doctors.
He expressed thanks to their partners who have assisted them over the years.
Meantime Parliamentary Representative for Portsmouth Ian Douglas said he is pleased with the Rotary Club’s contribution.
“You could have made your contribution to any other field, to sports, to culture, to education but you saw the need and I am happy for the work the Rotary Club continues to do in Dominica,” he noted. “We salute you, we want to continue to partner with you, we want to collaborate with you building from the investment that we have made four or five years ago when we upgraded basically the RFA Diagnosis center.”
He pointed out that the Accident and Emergency Department is an “essential” part of the service that is offered to the public and he is happy that the Club saw the need to make the investment.
“Persons as far as Calibishie, Wesley, Capuchin, Colihaut, and Salisbury access this facility for health care and we are happy that we can come together in this collaborative venture to ensure that we continue to advance the services that are offered here,” Douglas noted.
The project is a joint effort of the Rotary Club of Portsmouth, Ross University School of Medicine and the Ministry of Health.
It has taken more than a year from concept, planning, design and fund raising.
The project aims to improve access, efficiency and equipment at the Hospital’s Emergency Room which will in turn improve patient care and health care infrastructure in the community.
Some of the areas to be upgraded include equipment and layout (access), increase the number of ER beds to four, to improve treatment capacity and flow, provide new medical equipment to improve ability to diagnose and stabilize emergency patients, revise the triage process to improve evaluation, diagnosis and initial treatment and to increase opportunity for specialty care clinics staffed by Ross University School of Medicine students and Hospital staff.
Great initiative. However, four emergency beds seems inadequate for the number of areas served.
Gratitude to people is gratitude to God.
Thank you to the Rotary Club for this great monetary gift. God bless you for that.
@ Rotary Club International:
I love to see good corporate citizenship. Great Work. Much needed.
@ Kenneth Darroux: Sir I must respectfully tell you that unless your government and any other subsequent government is not prepared to pay these “cadre of newly trained specialist Doctors” very very well, the same brain drain is going to keep happening.
Our Dominican doctors many of them i have observed are not in it for the love of medicine or caring for people per se. They’re in it for the prestige and money.
And another thing Sir, I think alot of our Doctors need some training in personal skills. Some of them cannot even look at you the patient in the eyes when they’re checking you, far less to ask the important pertinent questions. Too many of them have a “don’t ask, don’t tell attitude”. That is, if the patient or family don’t ask about their ailment, they don’t tell.
Respectfully
Kubuli Kountry
very good initiative lets see if the ultra sound dptmnt there will be reopened
Am reading this and in the end I see the big pic on the brick wall and that Lindo Park fiasco came to mind, could that not have been the same way? why was it not done that same way? the Rotary club could have did things the same way the did at Lindo but a more civilized people did it the right way, thanks to you all for doing this, this is the hospital I was born in, I have nothing but love for that place thanks again Rotary.
This is a very commendable initiative by the Rotary Club of Portsmouth and I applaud their devotion to the betterment of health services at RFAH. I submit that the Honourable Minister For Health should now initiate a mandatory customer service initiative for staff. Thanks.
To the minister of HEALTH, I must say I love Dominica and would love to visit more often BUT without a HOSPITAL in MARIGOT i cannot come or even send my children home ,please think on what you all are doing Melville hall airport and God forbid something serious happen what will be your excuse . I need the minister to answer me
hell get to that im sure he will by the looks and sound of things he is in his area of expertise when i listen to him speak he sounds sure and u can hear the passion in his voice
Why don’t you Celedrity mum do like the Rotary Club and raise some funds and help in the development of your community, Marigot. We are the Government and the elected persons are our servants.