IN JAMAICA: Doctors blame lack of resources for poor health care.... Ministry to investigate supply problems at hospitals..."The elevator is always a problem, as it hardly ever works. The issue gets worse when you have to tell a patient 'I'm sorry, I can't do your surgery again because the elevator isn't working'," the surgeon said.

BY KIMBERLEY HIBBERT Observer staff reporter hibbertk@jamaicaobserver.com  Monday, January 05, 2015    

MEDICAL doctors yesterday blamed the lack of resources for the poor health care received by citizens at the nation's public hospitals.

The state-owned Kingston Public Hospital (KPH).

The doctors, who all requested anonymity, were responding to yesterday Sunday Observer story which exposed the conditions under which doctors have to work at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) and Spanish Town Hospital as well as the poor treatment received by patients, mostly poor Jamaicans.

One surgeon at the KPH told the Jamaica Observer on a number of occasions surgeries have had to be cancelled or postponed because of a shortage of equipment and the malfunctioning of others.

"The elevator is always a problem, as it hardly ever works. The issue gets worse when you have to tell a patient 'I'm sorry, I can't do your surgery again because the elevator isn't working'," the surgeon said.

In June last year elective surgeries were cancelled at the KPH because of repairs being carried out on one of the main elevators at the hospital, according to the surgeon. He said that, to date, the elevator does not function properly.

"A man is required to be posted in the elevator at all times to get you to the floor the surgery is being done. That's not a functioning elevator if someone has to be posted in it to allow it to go up and come down," the surgeon said.

He said that only emergency surgeries can be done because of the risks patients face when the elevator doesn't work.more