Archive of posts from Saba-News.com Archive Saba News
The Daily Herald published today the following “Letter to the Editor”:
Dear Editor,
Here are the points:
- Hiring nurses without diplomas and those with degrees cannot get an opportunity.
- Nurses being given positions and don’t know their head from their tail.
- When you complain about anything that you see or hear that’s not correct, your department head gets mad and takes away her speech from you for days.
- Nurses are being ignored on their daily duties.
- Patients a.o. (sick leave) papers being hidden so that they don’t have to see the government doctor. (Why? Because they are family members) * Nurses being bad talked and whispered about behind their backs, that’s why they don’t complain any more.
- Personal love affair is being brought in and fought about on the job.
- Some have to take their vacation but others get pay out under the table although there was a meeting stating that it is mandatory to take it yearly.
- Courses (Hurrex) held and only the favourite nurses can attend, not even half of the ward went. Half of the nurses walking around with them daily with carnival colour hairdos.
- Meeting held about no acrylic nails on the job and it still is taking place.
- Helicopter-training was held and only 2 to 3 nurses got the opportunities to travel overseas with patients in the case of emergencies.
- Telephone receptionist never in her office to answer the phone but receives her full salary. But when the former dentist was here she sat all on Fridays by the dentist office controlling the people like they were her kids, because of the under the table payment. (Ridiculous)
- Ambulance department is a total war zone. Who is not jealous of each other wants to fight each other because of positions on a daily basis.
- New vehicles being destroyed by the workers with their reckless driving and nothing being done about it.
- Vehicles being send to the car wash and there are workers driving around doing nothing.
- Lab is always excluded from any courses or trainings.
- Non-diploma nurses working in the Home Health Department.
- Patients calling in daily complaining that they are not receiving their daily care from the Home Health nurses.
- Cars being parked all over the island and nurses going home @ 10:00am to cook or going hairdresser and patients not getting seen.
- Children of Home Health workers being driven around and visiting patients’ residence especially on holidays. (Lack of babysitters they say.)
- Patients receiving rough treatment, neglect and insults from the Home Health nurses. For example: Not carrying them to pay their bills, cleaning up the place, leaving them unattended on the roads & doing their shopping.
- Supervisors with bad attitude when they have lovers’ stress. Merging! Merging! Merging! How can you merge two departments when both departments are in chaos? Henry Every Old of the Age!
- Nurses mistreat the seniors. What do you think about the emergency patients?
- The nurses at the Old Age Home don’t like to take courses and don’t like to be corrected at all.
- The nurses sit down in the Nurse’s Station the whole day in front of the computer or on their cell phones neglecting the clients.
- Cleaners and cooks are fighting, disturbing the patients from taking their rest.
- Wheelchairs are dirty and unkempt. * The elderly clients are sitting down without anything to do. (Just nodding and watching each other.) Shame! Shame! Shame! Hopefully, after this goes public that there will be changes for the upcoming year.
Have an enjoyable Christmas & a Happy New Year. Thank you!
Name withheld at author’s request.
Come on, this is our Caribbean culture. We can write similar complaints about many people who receive their salary from our government or the RCN. We’re all family so what do you expect.
Still the article must have been written by someone who is leaving the island. Very courageous! Of course we know that his or her “opinion” indeed is in sync with the facts: visible for every one.
Since this is the topic of the day let me address some facts and my opinion to this article here ! Hear it first n read it here , I strongly believe it is one of my own co workers who did this !! This right here says jealousy ALL OVER IT !! We had meetings over and over has anyone opened their mouths NO !! This right here shows the lack of respect that you have for your work place and your co workers let me high light the fact on my carnival hair do ! Monthly I choose on my own expensive to get my hair done you to can do the same but u can’t say I come to work with dirty HAiR my hair doesn’t define the way I treat n care for my patients ! And remember everyone started somewhere to get the position they are in now I’m a certified nursing assistant started off as just a nursing aid !! I’ve learnt a lot in my years working and will continue to do so everyone starts some where !!! Even the ones who do not have their diplomas at this time I am positive they are in a learning process and have some type of experience in this nursing field I think u need to go look up the history in nursing !!! Why are u hiding behind a news paper article ??? I know there is always a sign up sheet for when trainings are taking place ! Did u miss the memo ? We can’t expect everyone to do all the training what nurse will be left in case of an emergency !! Being a nurse comes from the heart u got to love it to do it !! And it would be shame if it is one of my co workers who did this cus honestly the problem begins with you ….
Nurses all over the world work countless hours caring for the sick and wounded, and have done so for years. Though Monastic nuns and prostitutes had performed the duties we commonly associate with nursing since the Middle Ages, many people consider Florence Nightingale the founder of modern nursing. Her contributions to medicine and statistics tremendously changed the way the world looked at nursing, a career once thought to be a “man’s job.”
This article is written out of jealousy!
Don’t be jealous. I am sure you will be doing a great job with all this extra training that is flown in from Holland. Since these Dutch know what is best for us, I am sure that you will be updated, trained and guided to the best and to the liking of those who pays for this.This all of course happens under the general approval of the director (who is Dutch) and her husband (who is also Dutch.)
But be honest, when you talk about many issues at the hospital on Saba, I am sure that everyone can contribute an example of how they were not treated accordingly, how doctors laughed in your face about your situation, how doctors did not take you serious when you entered with a complaint, how doctors sent you out of the office with a prescription full of medication which was totally unnecessary (just to get rid of you from my office. Who is next?)
It is not the nurses and nursing staff that makes this hospital a joke. It are the Dutch professionals who make a great living from our health care and who threat us like pageants when you enter at the hospital with a complaint. So what is my conclusion? Don’t visit the hospital any more since there is no thrust and believe in the professional staff. If you have money, which I do not have, visit a private doctor in Puerto Rico or Colombia and forget about this great Dutch Healthcare. It just sucks on all ends.
The high school, hospital and government are in bad shape and everyone knows this that is worth their pound in salt on this island. The reason is simple and that is corruption. Too many individuals from Saba always trying to claw their way into positions that they are not qualified for simply because they believe their family name warrants it.
It is part of our culture and it is always the reason why our island flounders in every direction. This way of thinking may have been accepted in the past but it should no longer be tolerated if we are to progress and keep up with the world in this new millennia.
If you have a position then you better do the work that it entails and have the paperwork and credentials to back yourself up. The Dutch Government need to come in, clean house and shut down all these foundations on this island as they are the root of all evil here. Finally, I agree with the original poster. The nurses at the hospital are always talking, gossiping and disclosing private information that spreads around this island by the time you have driven home from the hospital. Focus on the job at hand and the one you are being paid to do. Shame, shame, shame!
I’ve witnessed patients talk their own business yet blame it on the nurses , it’s strange that you claim the nurses talk it while the nurses are not the ones seeing your private documents, don’t hide behind a name go and make your complaint since you clearly feel that way , ranting on comments won’t help ! Because saba is only 5 square miles you would feel that way but many of you cry to come home after being sent to st.maarten and having bad treatment…. Shame on you for trying to bring down your own!!
Wow I am flabbergasted over all of this do you really think that getting a set of Dutch nurses will matter no it will not . I have worked 35 years for the community of SABA and has given it my all and after this I am in the wrong profession. Fellow colleagues let’s walk out for 24 hours and let who ever think we are not good do it all . It will be a schock to some!!!!!!!!
I have had a great deal of interaction with the health system on Saba. They were able to help save the life of my wife on at least two occasions. Unfortunately she died on Saba in April. I found the Nurses and Doctors on Saba to be hard working and caring people who did all that could be done to give my wife the best of care.
Somehow we have bought the idea that everyone will be saved by modern medicine. Many times they are working in the dark because the information provided is not accurate. My wife was seen by American doctors, Colombian doctors and Saban Doctors. She had nothing good to say about the Americans, but thought both the Saban and Colombian professionals were very helpful and caring.
Nurse Naomi will always be my hero.
Being a medical professional on a small island is a tough job, All life ends the same.
I would like to thank all the many people who made the effort to save my wife, you are what makes Saba wonderful.
Reading these words from James, as testimony from a grieving family, over the lost of his wife, brings joy to my heart and I suspect many other hearts, as to the contributions of many health providers. I believe even members of the public,and visitors to the islands will attest to this. Care givers in most instances unselfishly go beyond their call of duty in rendering primary and secondary health care to patients, who need their medical assistance.
Professionally trained doctors and nurses, are the ” Florence Nightingales” to the sick. They need to be given heavenly praises for the work they do in preserving life to the needy.
Adopted Son