Staff and patients at Annotto Bay Hospital grapple with faulty elevator

By Nakinskie Robinson    

 

For the last three weeks, healthcare workers at Annotto Bay Hospital in St. Mary have resorted to an alternative route to transport patients due to a faulty elevator.

 

It's reported that patients and staff are frustrated since they have had to be traversing flights of stairs to move across the facility.

 

Parish Manager for the St. Mary Health Services, Sherene Wallace, who gave further details of the situation, said the hospital's management is working to remedy the matter. 

 

"We would have done some repairs to the elevator. Our supplier would have come in, service provider did some repairs. However, since then, it has been up and down, and so we have reached out just to get an assessment of it. Based on the senior technician for the supplier coming in last week Thursday, we gathered that the circuit board that was placed in the elevator was not compatible to the elevator."

 

She said the elevator now requires two parts for its repair, one of which is already in the supplier's possession and the other - a compatible circuit board - is in transit from overseas and should arrive in Jamaica by early next week.  

 

It's expected that the elevator will be repaired within a day after the parts are received.

 

Concerns have also been raised about a shortage of bed linen.

 

But Ms. Wallace again sought to provide an explanation. 

 

"Based on checks done with the team today, there is sufficient linen at the facility today. And we are indeed having a bit of a challenge as well with the dryer, but we have that process in procurement in that of a replacement of a part as well. And we are working expeditiously to have that part through the procurement process in place at the facility to see to the repair of the dryer. But we have systems in place to ensure that we have sufficient linen at the facility," she insisted.