( RealNews Antigua) Workers at the Sir Lester Bird Medical Centre are both amazed
and amused by efforts of Health Minister Molwyn Joseph to stage
“a big opening ceremony” to unveil the addition to the Emergency
Department.
Staff members shared photos of the entrance to the extension,
where the paved road has been cut, reportedly to install
decorative paving stones.
“This is how this man wastes Government’s money,” one staff
member complains. “Nothing at all is wrong with the road. It is
just a show. You know the man love to do things big.”
In the meantime, the hospital employee adds, the institution is
“still short on basic supplies,” and repairs to the four operating
theaters are alleged to be still incomplete.
The staff also criticize the increased square footage as
“nonsense,” noting that it is a “big space, but with no increase in
staff and equipment.”
Some residents have asked how the expansion of the waiting
area will compensate for the long wait periods that, reportedly, are
often due to understaffing.
Others say that, given the shortage of beds on the wards, which
forces patients to be kept for too long in the Emergency Room, an
expansion of the ER, itself, would have made more sense.
