Shaggy & Friends: The caring must continue
“There isn’t anything we have enough of in terms of equipment, the only thing we have enough of is patients.” – Dr Michelle-Ann Richards-Dawson, senior medical officer at the Bustamante Hospital for Children.
THOUGH the festivities in aid of the Bustamante Hospital for Children have ended, the caring does not. As the curtain close on the recent Shaggy and Friends benefit concert, the donations of thousands of concert patrons as well as those of corporate Jamaica will be tallied and put to good use, purchasing necessary equipment for the hospital.
While donations last year were used to purchase purchase a new ENT microscope, some vital signs monitors, a volumetric pump, four stretchers and a blood warmer, the hospital is still in great need of other life-saving devices as well as everyday supplies.
The only paediatric hospital in the English-speaking Caribbean, the Bustamante Hospital for Children has had its doors open to all children between the ages of birth and 12 years old for the past 46 years. It saw as many as 86,000 children in the Accident and Emergency department and 37,000 patients in the specialist outpatient department in 2008 alone.
Outside of general paediatrics, the hospital offers five specialised medical departments, which include Cardiology, Neurology and Neonatology and has eight surgical departments which range from neurosurgery and ophthalmology to dental services and dermatology. Each of these departments has their own never-ending list of needs, from big surgical equipment to paediatric and junior beds. And though the Shaggy Make a Difference Foundation is slated to bring in a record amount of donations this year, that will only be able to do so much.
“Accident and Emergency needs monitors, trolleys, resuscitation equipment, and mobile equipment that can be moved to an area in case the accident happens outside of the hospital, while the operating theatres need tables, diathermy equipment (hot rods used to get blood to coagulate during surgery), and the nursery is in need of incubators and phototherapy lamps. Over in orthopaedics they need external fixation devices and drill sets, the lists just go on and on it is really too much to list,” Dr Richards-Dawson said.
“But,” she continued, “one of our greatest needs here at the hospital right now is a CAT scan machine, we do not own one.”
The CAT scan machine is used to define normal and abnormal structures in the body. It works much like an x-ray machine, but can take cross-sectional and three-dimensional images of the internal organs. The hospital currently has to access the CAT scan machines at the Kingston Public Hospital or the University Hospital of the West Indies which can put a delay on urgently needed results.
According to Dr Innis, consultant anaesthetist and Head of the Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care at the Bustamante Hospital fro children, another great need of the hospital is pulse oxymeters.
“Every patient should have a pulse oxymeter, a medical device which measures the oxygen saturation of the blood and the pulse rate and tells us a lot about our patients’ situations. If we are running a 253-bed hospital then we should have 253 pulse oxymeters; we currently have less than 30,” he said.
Another department of the hospital which is in dire need of donations is the little known Learning and Activity Centre which acts as a school for patients who spend extended periods in the hospital.
“Here, in-patients at the hospital for prolonged periods can be exposed to continuous education. This department is in need of chairs, desks, computer learning aids and educational toys,” Dr Richards-Dawson said.
The Bustamante Hospital for Children, as it stands today, also does not have a local area network for their computers nor do they have a comprehensive computerised database of their patients.
“Yes, we are behind in the times, I should be able to communicate with another colleague in seconds or pull up all of a patient’s information just by typing in their name,” continued Dr Richards-Dawson.
The Bustamante Hospital for Children has impacted the lives of most Jamaicans during its almost five decades of service, and now it needs us to return the favour. The caring must continue.
“In light of the fact that we are a specialist paediatric facility, everyone benefits from our service, and I would hasten to say that despite contrary belief that Bustamante Hospital for Children is a ‘poor people hospital’, it is not. The determining factor for accepting care at the Bustamante Hospital for Children is that you are a sick child between the ages of zero and 12 and you require the services that we offer. We are in the business of making sick children better,” said Mrs Needham, the chief executive officer of the hospital.
The Bustamante Hospital for Children is the major referral paediatric hospital in the island and its 253 beds will continue to remain warm with our sick children. The Shaggy Foundation, along with Corporate sponsors like Wisynco Group of Companies through its brands Coca Cola, Ocean Spray-Wata and Wata, and Island Outpost would like to thank all those who have made donations to the Bustamante Hospital for Children and urge the Jamaican public to continue to stretch their hands out in aid. The show may be over, but the caring must go on.
(Visit www.shaggymakeadifferencefoundation.org or call 444-2452, make your donation and continue to care.)