Doctors should not run hospitals: FMA

Fiji Medical Association president Dr Ronal Kumar says doctors should stop managing hospitals and hand the job to trained managers, using Aspen Medical-managed hospitals as an example.

Speaking at the FMA Annual General Meeting at The Pearl Resort in Pacific Harbour on Saturday, Dr Kumar said Aspen was successful because managers, not doctors, ran it.

"You don't have doctors managing Aspen. You have managers managing Aspen. And this is what the rest of the country needs," he said to applause.

He said the head of CWM Hospital was one of the country's best anaesthetists, currently sitting behind a desk instead of in theatre.

"We are trained as doctors and we are not trained as managers," Dr Kumar said, calling for medical staff to be moved back into clinical roles.

Former Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum backed the call, saying major decisions on hospital construction and supplies were often made by people with no relevant training.

"Zero knowledge. Yet they were expected to make those decisions," he said, pointing to a separate unit under the Ministry of Economy that handles all government construction projects.

Former FMA president Dr Alipate Vakamocea said Aspen's systems for patient safety could be copied at CWM at little extra cost.

"These are systems and processes that Aspen has implemented that I think we can learn from," he said.