Panday: More hospitals won't fix healthcare woes

PATRIOTIC Front political leader Mickela Panday has asked how the construction of another hospital will improve the delivery of health care.

Last week, the Prime Minister and Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh formally opened the new Sangre Grande Medical Campus.

Panday did not mention the campus by name when she spoke about health matters in a Facebook post on April 20.

"Opening another hospital without the necessary human, financial and medical resources is like spinning top in mud. Especially when the hospitals currently operating are not functioning efficiently."

She did not identify these hospitals either.

Panday said the issue was not the number of hospitals the country has.

She added that without the necessary resources to properly operate the existing hospitals, "we may find ourselves creating further shortages in an already strained healthcare system."

Panday said the people in authority need to account to the population about how the billions of taxpayer dollars allocated each year to health are being spent, why there is still a shortage of key medical personnel and equipment, whether there is transparency and accountability in the management of health care and whether sufficient resources and support are being provided to medical staff to do their jobs efficiently.

Panday said until these and other questions are properly answered, "Nothing will change and we will still be talking about building and opening another hospital."