Resources must be provided for QEH

 

Resources are critical to the overall ability of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) to provide quality health care to this country.

 

That point was made by Chief Executive Officer of the QEH, Dr. Dexter James, who was speaking on the topic “If Not Now, Then When?: The Imperative For a New Financing Model For The QEH”, during a lecture series which was hosted by the University of the West Indies on Wednesday night.

 

The CEO gave great insight into the challenges faced by the country’s health care institution, which include a large resource gap. This gap, he explained, is where the demand and cost of health services largely exceed the availability of resources. 

 

However, Dr. James was careful to note that the QEH is more than able to handle the Barbadian public if adequate resources are given. Unfortunately, much of these resources are spent on persons with non-communicable diseases, which puts a severe strain on the system.

 

Dr. James went on to say that it is extremely difficult to cut or discontinue the “free” package of health care services that Barbadians have grown accustomed to and have enjoyed for a long time. Therefore, this leaves two options – this first is to do nothing; or respond to the challenge at hand in order to sustain the service.

 

 

Therefore in an effort to improve the services offered, Dr. James proposed what he termed as the 5 in 50 steps. The first suggestion is to re-engineer the health and health care system. He outlined that this could be done through research on clinical efficiency, moving towards technology, 24-hour operations, clinical services re-design, to name a few.

 

Secondly, he suggested that there could be improvements to fiscal management in order to find a model that drives desired behavioural change. This could be in the form of doctoral compensation, a shift from global funding model and diversification of revenue base, among others.

 

Added to that, there is a need for effective disease prevention and health promotion. Dr. James urged that at the primary health care level, there ought to be the introduction of health promotion and prevention strategies and the strengthening of monitoring and evaluation framework for health indicators.

 

Fourthly, he stated that the governance model - the metamorphosis should be revisited to expand scope of legislative authority; and lastly  stakeholder value should be created.

 

With this in mind, he noted that  patients are the solution, not the problem. Therefore, Dr. James is calling for customer service orientation, the establishment of a general practitioner clinic for category 3 patients at accident and emergency, and the improvement to response times and  patient safety, along with other strategies that can help at this level.