Victoria Jubilee Hospital

[MdmeX]

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>EDITORIAL CARTOON</SPAN>
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Monday, October 02, 2006
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[MdmeX]

RE: Victoria Jubilee Hospital

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Victoria Jubilee outrage and the value of whistle-blowers</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Claude Robinson
Sunday, October 01, 2006
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<P class=StoryText align=justify>Dr Lloyd Goldson ought to be commended for exposing the dangers that some pregnant women and their unborn children faced at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital in Kingston while the institution did not have the right tools to sterilise equipment used in some high risk-deliveries.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=90 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Claude Robinson </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>Instead of praise, he has been hauled over the coals by bureaucrats in health administration although permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health Dr Grace Allen Young insists he has "not been disciplined".<P class=StoryText align=justify>Speaking on Beyond the Headlines (RJR FM-94) Wednesday, the top official in the health ministry said Dr Goldson, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, had just been "reminded of the communications policy" that determines who can be "official spokespersons". and he was not one of them.
Dr Allen Young's protestations, notwithstanding the 'reminder' of the protocols governing un-free speech, sound very much like a reprimand to me.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Given the intense media scrutiny of the failures at VJH and the death of one infant at the hospital, I would be very surprised to hear of further disciplinary actions against Dr Goldson, but the incident raised several fundamental questions that should not disappear as just another 'nine-day wonder'.<P class=StoryText align=justify>These questions include the factors behind the death of one infant; the capacity of the facility to deliver the standard of care that health professionals have been accustomed to giving and which patients have come to expect; and the role of 'whistle-blowers' in good governance.<P class=StoryText align=justify>On the first matter, Dr Goldson took the unusual step to turn to the media last weekend to highlight a problem which he said was putting patients at risk.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=120 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>DR GRACE ALLEN YOUNG... insists that Dr Goldson has not been disciplined </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>A device called an autoclave, used to sterilise equipment needed to perform critical procedures such as Caesarean sections, had not been working for weeks, thus forcing the daily cancellation of several operations thereby increasing the risks to patients.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The Sunday Observer reported: "In the last six weeks we have cancelled about 60 cases," said Dr Goldson. "On average we do about five of these cases per day. A 41-year-old woman was cancelled on four occasions, it was her first pregnancy and the baby died. It just does not get much worse than that."<P class=StoryText align=justify>At this time, we do not know the cause of death of the baby and the contributing factors. What we know from an official ministry statement is that "doctors pulled a live baby from Carolyn Edwards Brown during a C-Section operation at the VJH on September 11" and the baby "died sometime later".<P class=StoryText align=justify>In a statement Wednesday the ministry said, "Further investigation is therefore being undertaken to determine whether the child died of natur