BASSETERRE, St. Kitts (Tuesday 23rd March 2021) – Credible information reaching this media house indicates that onlookers have been witnessing the ambulance transporting patients from the Joseph N. France General Hospital to use services at a private medical office located in the East Basseterre community.
Reliable sources say that due to challenges with faulty equipment at the government run facility such hospitalized patients have been unable to have x-ray, ultrasound and other imaging tests done where they have been warded.
“This situation has become an inconvenience for patients who are seriously ill and should only be moved very short distances,” one individual has said.
Related to the topic of hospital equipment not working, former radio personality Toni Frederick-Armstrong, in a social media post on Tuesday 23rd March 2021 said she has had the need for an x-ray after having recently been in a vehicular accident.
She stated that the X-ray machine at the hospital has not been functioning and has not functioned for some time. Frederick-Armstrong’s post went on to say that a “private radiologists’ practices are doing all the x-rays.”
Management of the general hospital has also been on the receiving end of public criticism whereby patients and others have been claiming that they have been told to get their prescribed medication from private pharmacies in Basseterre as a result of medicine shortages.
One patient, speaking under the condition of anonymity told the Labour Spokesman that, in the last three weeks “I was sent to a pharmacy to buy all my medication when I was warded at the JNF General Hospital.”
More information received points out that since Cuban- trained nephrologist (kidney doctor) Dr. Salazar left the federation in November 2020, there has been no replacement which is “cause for additional concern” according to a credible source.
This media house reached out to the JNF General Hospital with questions on these issues. While the Medical Chief of Staff, Dr. Cameron Wilkinson was reached, he was unavailable for questions at the time of publication.