The North Central Regional Health Authority (NCRHA) recently paid off a $40 million bill it owed to Medical Associates Private Hospital, St Joseph. The authority’s CEO, Kumar Boodram, confirmed that to the T&T Guardian after its director Dr Rodney Ramroop disclosed that the authority owed millions of dollars to several medical private institutions. Ramroop was speaking at the NCRHA’s public board meeting yesterday at the Eric Williams auditorium, La Joya Complex, St Joseph.
He explained that the money would have been spent because the NCRHA had to outsource patient treatment and care because its hospitals were not equipped with either the medical experts or the necessary facilities. “Because we had no neurosurgeon, any patient with cranial, brain and spine problems had to be sent to private institutions. One we owed over $33 million and that was before 2012,” Ramroop said.
But he said because there were now three neurosurgeons at the NCRHA, this outsourcing has ceased. There were also gaps in the Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) Department, including no paediatric ENT service and Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (ICU). “We had to send children to the adult ICU and it was a challenge for the staff there to keep adjusting medication,” he added.
Ramroop said he believed the NCRHA spent millions of dollars for patients to die at private institutions. He explained: “When the patients were sent to the private institutions for ICU care, most of them die within two to three days because they don’t take responsibility and assess our patients. They don’t have high dependency care there and the onus is on us to provide that.”
Boodram said over a period of a year, the NCRHA was able to liquidate the $40 million bill, including a single patient’s bill which amounted to $1.6 million. The chairman of the NCRHA board, Dr Shehenaz Mohammed, said five ambulances had now been bought for the NCRHA but the process was long and cumbersome.
She added: “The process of acquiring these ambulances took almost the entire tenure of this board because it required proper specification and alignment of needs, a rigid tendering process and finally approval from the Ministry of Health, which was received by letter, dated September 23, 2014.
“It is expected that these ambulances will be delivered within the next two months, so members of the public, patients of the NCRHA, finally you will have designated ambulances for your needs.” Boodram said the ambulances cost $3 million and were acquired through the Massy Group. See Page A8