THE IMPACT of violence on the health sector is a two-edged sword that hurts even as it cramps the capacity to heal. Health professionals have been struggling for years to treat injuries caused by violence without adequate resources to cope.
That much has been documented in the recent Editors' Forum dubbed 'Gangs, Guns and Garrisons - the impact of violence on Health and Society'; indeed the documentation goes back a number of years. Which raises the question of why this crucial sector has not been adequately equipped with the staffing and other resources to deal with the scourge of persistent crime.
The more obvious damage is in the toll of trauma and injuries from shootings and criminal conflict which impacts on the public medical facilities. Dr. Trevor McCartney, the senior medical officer at the Kingston Public Hospital told the recent forum that of the 275,000 patients seen at the KPH over the past five years almost 100,000 resulted from violent injuries. That surely is a sad reflection of a society almost crippled by conflict.
And even before that five-year time span, the Ministry of Health has been forced to recruit health professionals from overseas to alleviate the chronic shortage of human resources.
In the late 1990s Nigerian nurses were recruited under a technical assistance programme on two-year contracts; and thereafter health professionals were brought in from Ghana and Cuba.
While at some stage there have been hundreds of registered nurses in training, the sector continued to lose them, not only through natural attrition, but from the poor working environment and more competitive salaries abroad. The difference in salaries is understandable, given competing demands from other areas of the public service; but surely the basics of working conditions should have been improved to slow the flow.
An Editors' Forum in late 2003 was told that two overseas groups had made proposals to Government to train doctors, nurses and medical technicians for export. As far as we are aware nothing flowed from those proposals.
Crime and violence have grown apace, however, posing problems at every level of the society - none more critical than health. Public hospitals, for example, face the dilemma of collecting fees even as the Government insists that treatment cannot be withheld if the patient can't afford it.
That of course is the right humanitarian policy to follow. But the sector cannot meet the needs of current realities if it continues to bleed away its essential resources: our medical personnel.
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