The 24-hour polyclinic system will need at least three to six more months before a proper assessment of its effect can be made.
Clinical director for emergency services at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), Dr Chaynie Williams, made this estimation on Wednesday, saying it was too soon to test the impact of the new around-the-clock service on the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department at Barbados’ largest medical facility.
“The advantage is that if we want to, we can send patients over a 24-hour period as opposed to the fixed time as it was before, but the volume that we are having is a similar number of fairly sick persons that can only be seen at the QEH, so we would have to monitor it over a longer period of time,” Williams said. (TG)
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