KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – The condition of the floor at the Male Surgical Ward of the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital (MCMH) is “disgusting” and depressing, says Opposition Leader Arnhim Eustace.
“They should do something about it now. It really is disgusting. I left that hospital really with a feeling of depression last Thursday,” Eustace said on radio Monday.
“As I left the hospital and I walked out of the male surgical ward, I looked at the holes in the linoleum or whatever they have on the floor there, it just disgusts me,” said Eustace, who went to visit patients at the hospital, the nation’s premier healthcare facility.
He said there were squares cut out of the flooring material at various places “and somebody jam some piece of thing to hold down something in a corner”.
According to him, the floor has been that way for a long time and is getting worse.
“[It] is not becoming of a hospital ward at all and I am sure that the nurses and so on who work there are not happy with that situation,” he said.
The situation at the ward, Eustace said, is “not the kind of environment that would help people to get well.
“It really is disgraceful and that piece should be changed and it should be changed now. Our hospital should have an ambience which speaks to people getting well, not to get more depressed apart from the illness.”
He said that the deteriorating section was obvious as soon as one enters the ward.
“It can’t cost that much to replace the material on the floor. … I know there are financial problems. and those problems were brought on by this government, but we must have some basic standards that we adhere to even with our financial problems,” said Eustace a former prime minister and finance minister.
“So many things need to be done. Yet you hear … Prime Minister [Dr. Ralph Gonsalves] talking all kind of foolishness about the finances of this country. … I mean you are so broke that you can’t do that?” Eustace said.