Minister of Health Jeffrey Bostic has given the assurance that within the next few weeks those who use the David Thompson Health and Social Services Complex in St John will be able to utilise its services after hours.
Bostic was speaking at a Barbados Labour Party meeting in Glebe Land, St George on Sunday night in support of Senator Toni Moore’s candidacy in the November 11 by-election in St George North.
“Now that we have brought 95 nurses from Ghana here who are now into the public health system working, and at the QEH [Queen Elizabeth Hospital], we are going to extend the hours at the polyclinic in St John. It will work from eight in the morning to eight at night, seven days a week in the first instance, before we go the full 24 hours,” he said.
The Minister said he had already started talks with the Minister of Transport and Works Ian Gooding-Edghill to be able to get some proper bus routes from St George, St Andrew and St Joseph to allow people to access the polyclinic.
“That service at St John is going to be a one-stop service when it is fully operational. You will be able to get your X-rays there, do dialysis there, it has an asthma bay and get everything required at that polyclinic and you don’t have to go down ’Town,” he said.
Bostic also announced that he recently took a proposal to Cabinet, which was accepted, for the Glebe Polyclinic to be renamed the Freddy Miller Polyclinic in honour of former parliamentarian Frederick Miller.
“The process was started years ago when polyclinics were named after persons who would have done well in health. There are a few polyclinics like St Philip and the Glebe that have not been renamed. Cabinet has agreed and in very short order, the Glebe Polyclinic would be renamed after Frederick Miller who represented this constituency in the 1960s, who was a Minister of Health in this country and who was responsible for the early years of the development of public health care services in Barbados,” he said.
He apologised for the time people waited outside the clinics as a result of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19 pandemic), and said his ministry had moved to correct that by purchasing a number of large tents so each clinic would have a covered waiting area.
Bostic said waiting times would also be reduced significantly as systems were digitised and appointments staggered.
He added Government is also embarking on a project to have all ambulances equipped with electro cardiac machines and emergency medical technicians trained in this area. (RA)
