St John: QEH ready for Ebola

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital may have a periodic shortage of drugs, but there’s no dearth of supplies for treating an Ebola patient.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Joy St John made this clear Wednesday night during a town hall meeting at the St Michael School focusing on the isolation centre and Barbados’ Ebola combat plan. She told the gathering of about 40 people she had been assured by key health care officials that they had set aside supplies for the treatment of Ebola cases.

She also spoke of backup supplies being available from the international health care network. St John was responding to a question posed by David Gill, former MP for St Michael South Central, the constituency in which the isolation centre was set up.

Gill asked whether a system that recently had shortages of supplies as basic as alcohol could support an Ebola treatment regime that could run into millions of dollars. Gill also said convening the meeting was “an affront” to residents of the area and people operating businesses in the district. (TY)

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