MINISTER of Health Dr Fenton Ferguson has said that sanctions will be levied against health workers if they are found guilty of unprofessional conduct towards patients while under their care in any health facility islandwide.

Ferguson said that a draft customer care policy has already been prepared and consultations are to be made with the relevant professional groups and union because the policy must carry with it sanctions.

“I believe that we have a responsibility as the state to ensure that our workers – not just doctors and nurses, but our persons at front desks, at registrations, etc, manage their first contact with patients and clients well. So it is important that we develop that code,” Ferguson told the Jamaica Observer last week.

Almost a month ago the health minister ordered an investigation into certain allegations at the Victoria Jubilee hospital, less than a day after the Sunday Observer highlighted the plight of three mothers who accused workers, including doctors, at that hospital of negligence, verbal and physical abuse during their delivery.

One mother lost her child and reported that she was blamed by the doctor in attendance of being too fat and lazy to push out the child, resulting in the death.

The woman, who has had to seek professional counselling after harbouring thoughts of suicide for ‘killing her child’ said she would never go back to the hospital.

“Overtime we have gotten patients making accusations in other hospitals and health centres etc,” Ferguson said. “My responsibility and the team’s responsibility is to unsure that there is a policy in place that when that happens we are in a position to act, and the elements of that I am sure will involve patients having the opportunity for exit interviews at the end of stay to express their views of our institutions,” he went on.

While not expounding on what these sanctions will be, the minister said the surety is that there will be sanctions.

“It’s not about whether we can do this or whether we can’t do that. I believe fundamentally that even as we talk about constraints in terms of financial, I believe in customer care,” he said.

Ferguson said he that had learnt the importance of customer care towards patients first hand from being a practitioner himself for 36 years.

“I knew my patients by name. They used to get birthday cards. I knew about their children and grandchildren, and that is part of how you give service, irrespective of what you need to have good clinical hands but how you endear your patients to you is how you connect with them – and it is going to happen. Let it not be Jubilee-centred, it is going to be in our 24 hospitals, in over 300 health centres and our health care workers, so it’s not going to be just a Jubilee. Jubilee is one component. There are complaints coming from many other hospitals,” he said.

The Victoria Jubilee hospital sees approximately 9,000 mothers and babies per year while the overall hospital visits at other public institutions is over one million each year.

“It is our intention to deal with persons who are guilty,” Dr Ferguson said. “Outside of the policy that is being contemplated, there is a mechanism now in the standards and regulations unit in the Ministry where under normal circumstances if there was a situation in a hospital that there could be a written complaint. So patients can put their complaints in writing,” he added.