Horrible conditions at JFK

State – run John F. Kennedy (JFK) Medical Center Chief Executive Officer Dr. Jerry Brown says most of the people that die at JFK lost their lives due to lack of working Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to take patients upon arrival.

Speaking Monday, 18 June on Capitol Hill at a budget hearing, Dr. Jerry Brown said JFK sadly doesn’t have the basic material to cater to patients who have already been turned down at other hospitals before seeking treatment at the state referral hospital.

Yet, he says on a daily basis, JFK receives the most critical people who most hospitals have turned down and can no longer be catered to. He further revealed that there is no emergency space for children at JFK, noting that children give up in the space of being rushed upstairs from downstairs to be treated.

Dr. Brown complains that there is only one generator serving the hospital, noting that once that generator develops some problem, there will be no electricity supply at the hospital.

He explains that JFK faces a major problem of the lack of space, saying the hospital has only 150 beds for patients. According to Dr. Brown, only two of the ten operating rooms at JFK are operational, thus stressing the need for all of the ten operation rooms to be functional.

In the wake of the challenges cited by Dr. Brown, he has asked the joint committee to add US$1.7 million to the budget of the hospital. He says when this money is added to JFK’s budget, the hospital will be recruiting 75 nurses with a monthly earning of USD400 each.

Dr. Brown says when he took over as head of the hospital, only one room was used as laboratory. But he says they have relocated the laboratory and modernized it.

By Bridgett Milton–Edited by Winston W. Parley