Emergency BAMP meeting

THE BARBADOS ASSOCIATION OF MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS (BAMP) has called an emergency meeting at 4 this evening at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) to discuss “critical shortages” at the island’s main health institution.
A release today said the meeting aimed to look at the short and long term ramifications of those shortages.
“Doctors and nurses in Barbados have managed to work around shortages of supplies in our healthcare institutions for several years. However, we believe that the health of this nation is in a position of risk that has never been experienced before and that the current shortages are unprecedented in the hospital’s fifty year history,” it read.
The release also said BAMP needed to discuss measures to protect members of the public as well as doctors who are working without basic supplies.
“These supplies are required by medical staff to safely perform surgeries, monitor ill patients and respond to emergencies,” the release continued.
“When doctors continue to work in the absence of these supplies we expose ourselves and the hospital to risk of indemnity and the patients to risk of adverse outcomes. It is our duty therefore, as guardians of the nation’s health, to address these matters.”
President Dr Carlos Chase is expected to speak to the media after the meeting. (PR/SAT)