UHWI wards in need of hot water

THE EDITOR SIR:

I would like to solicit a little space in your columns by highlighting a not-so-steamy affair at the University Hospital of the West Indies. At the end, I hope to succeed without getting into hot water with the authorities. Instead, I would rather that the hot water taps on ward 17, 18, and 19 take my place.

Sir, would you believe that in this age and time that this very popular hospital does not have hot water in its taps? If you are indeed hospitalised in any of these wards and you cannot tolerate the very cold tap water offered for a bath, then it is quite possible that dog will eat your supper if the nurse on duty forgets to walk with her matches from home or worse if she is not in a mood to boil some water on the fire. Can you imagine how many times the nurse on duty would have to put on a pot of water to bathe 26 or 30 patients in one night? Now, since the only pots that exists there are kettles; can you imagine how many kettles of water would be required to bathe 30 patients, especially when it is only one nurse or nursing assistant responsible to administer such baths?

Well, in case you have never been admitted to any of these wards, it is not a good idea to sweep this little piece of information aside because it will affect you directly or indirectly and I will tell you how.

Donation

Now several solutions are available to solve these problems. Since the hospital collect fees, then the administration needs to invest in proper working water heaters and fix the plumbing so that hot water is available in the hospital taps. This will give the nurses more time to serve in the wards as nurses instead of in the kitchens as cooks!

Another such solution is for the private sector to make a donation of less than $50,000 to purchase and install a hot-water unit per floor, since this is less than 'chicken feed' to many. And since there would be extra change from the purchase, one could use it to buy a few toilet seats for the hospital toilets in case the shock of mentioned situation proves to become too unbearable!

Fitzhu Johnson.

J2000hnf@yahoo.com