DESPITE TAKING STRIKE ACTION over the termination of Dr Cecil Rambarat’s contract with the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), members of the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners (BAMP) have associated the consultant with problems affecting patient care at the hospital.DAILY NATION investigations have revealed that during recent medical staff committee meetings, senior BAMP officials identified a lack of timeliness in the Department of Radiology headed by Rambarat as one of the factors that could lead to medico-legal difficulties.At a meeting on May 20, the minutes of which the DAILY NATION was able to obtain, Dr Haresh Thani revealed that the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department was unable to get CT scans at night when Rambarat was on call as “he continues to refuse to come out”.According to the minutes, BAMP president Dr Carlos Chase queried how Rambarat could “refuse to come out when each consultant receives an on-call allowance”. Dr Chaynie Williams, head of the A&E Department, complained that there had been no CT reports issued to her department since March.“She also indicated that there is no timely response to having things like urgent CT chest scans done and that this was compromising patient care,” the minutes stated.Dr Randy Carrington, head of the Department of Orthopaedics, revealed that his patients had difficulty in getting X-rays, which resulted in some patients “missing their follow-up appointments as these X-rays were necessary for their continued care”.Carrington said that when he called the radiologist he was referred to the chief radiographer “but the X-rays were still not being done”.BAMP members are currently on strike over the QEH board’s decision to part company with Rambarat and consultant urologist Dr Jerry Emtage.Board chairman Guy Hewitt said last week that management was trying to make the QEH a patient-centred institution rather than doctor-centred.When reached, BAMP president Chase said he had no comment to make. Efforts to reach public relations officer Dr Ermine Belle were unsuccessful up to press time.
