Usamate Visits Lautoka, Nadi Hospitals
The Minister for Health and Medical Services, Jone Usamate, yesterday told the staff of Lautoka Hospital to apply the values of integrity and responsibility while providing services to the patients.
He said: “All of them are here to serve the people of Fiji and these values need to become their values. A lot of complaints we get are about people not smiling and not feeling that they are being cared for. So now the nurses are doing their best to make sure they present their values.”
Lautoka Hospital upgrade
The minister stated that the new emergency ward in Lautoka is expected to open in September, if all goes well.
“It’s a magnificent facility.
“There will be an operating theatre as well and it will be opened soon because the old one needs to be fixed also.”
He said the ward would be a massive lift in the level of hospital facility similar to the new ones now in Suva.
Out patients double in numbers at Nadi Hospital
The minister also visited the Nadi hospital and said there were drastic measures and strategies laid out to help improve hospital services.
Mr Usamate said one of the problems in Nadi was that in about three or four years the number of out- patients had doubled from 50,000 to 100,000 but the staffing compliment did not change.
“This year Nadi hospital has been able to get two doctors and they have reviewed some of their processes to improve the hospital services.
He said Nadi hospital had received a lot of complaints recently.
“Where these complaints are genuine and the staffs are at fault disciplinary measures have to be taken. But sometimes there are miscommunications.”
He referred to the recent video which went viral on Facebook showing a patient not being attended to by the nurse.
“The staff have informed me that the patient concerned actually had already been seen by the nurse and the nurse who was accused and shown in the video was just passing by.”
He said no such things would go unnoticed and if found guilty the staff would be taken to task.
Edited by Paula Tuvuki
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