Give KEMH a chance

January 27, 2005

Dear Sir,

Under normal circumstances I would not write about comments made in your section in however, after statements made recently about Mrs. Gladys Smith and other negative comments, I feel that I must. I have been a patient at the King Edward Memorial Hospital on several occasions. I have been treated kindly by doctors, nurses and other staff that I have come into contact with. People in this community must understand that nobody or nothing is prefect except God.

We have one hospital on this Island. The people that work there have been professionally trained or skilled in the area they work in. If you or anyone else is not satisfied with the care received, they should question it like I do. I ask many questions. Some of which I already know the answers and others I don?t. I have been quite satisfied with the response especially to the questions that I already knew the answers to. It just reaffirms that the staff know what they are doing.

It was very unfortunate what happened to Mrs. Smith when she was a patient at the hospital. After reading the events that ultimately led to her death, I sympathise with her family. Granted, steps should be taken to make sure that this sort of thing does not ever happen again. I do not want to minimise her situation but Bermuda needs to understand that things of this nature will happen. No one wants to be either the recipient or family member or friend of the circumstances but whether in Bermuda the USA, Canada, Europe etc. Medical mistakes happen everyday!

Just because we have one hospital, we as members of this community should take pride in this and stop slandering the hospital and acting as if the hospital in Bermuda is the only hospital that things of this nature happen to. Have faith in what we have.

Off course it is a tragedy when something happens, I have hard many people make statements like, ?they gave my mother the wrong medication? or ?I have bad experiences at the hospital? or ?my uncle died in this room? and ?they should have done this or they should have done that?. The most outrageous things that I continue to hear is ?They told me that if I did not come here (to an overseas hospital) that I would have died? or ?they wanted to do surgery in Bermuda but this hospital told me that surgery would have killed me?.

Maybe or maybe not. Think about it people of this country, don?t you know that it is not always about caring, these overseas hospitals are indeed trying to make us loose faith in our own. Why you ask? So that they can continue to grab our dollars by our continued service to them. Don?t you know that people will sometimes say what is necessary for the almighty dollar.

Not in all instances but in some. So think about it. In my experiences and people that I have talked to, the doctors do not hesitate to send people overseas for treatment if they feel that they do not have the facilities or expertise to adequately care for someone. If you feel that there may be other options, ask for a second opinion. That?s not hard to do is it? Speak up and stop sitting back and complaining about things that you feel are not right.

Why do we always feel that the hospital is at fault if something goes wrong? Sometimes it is and sometimes it may not be. Question: If an elderly person tried to walk when they were at home, trying to go to the bathroom, fell and broke an arm. What would you do? Answer: take the to the emergency room for treatment. Whose fault would it be that they fell down in the first place?

Why then (under the same circumstances) that if this occurred at the hospital, it is deemed that hospital was in some way negligent? I know because I was the roommate of someone that this happened to. I watched this lady get out of bed after the nurse told her to call for help when she needed to go to the bathroom. What happened? She said that she can do it by herself and she fell and broke her wrist.

Stop placing blame on people that have no control of situations. Things happen as unfortunate as they may be. There needs to be a little more understanding and make suggestions of improvement to the appropriate people and not each other gossiping on the streets. Give our only hospital a chance. KEMH is great.

Horton is right

February 14, 2005

Dear Sir,

I would like to respond to ?Thanks for Nothing? who blasted Government for the recent changes to the law that will not allow non-Bermudians to buy from Bermudians. I applaud the Government for the bold move. You know what they say, the innocent have to suffer for the guilty and there are lots of guilty parties out there. Why do you think the realtors are screaming the loudest? They know that this happens every day in this country where Bermudians are fronting for non-Bermudians and giving away our land stock. I know, because I was approached by a non-Bermudian to do this for them. It?s a very real problem and I applaud the Bermuda Government for taking a stand. To the handful of Bermudians who will be affected ? tough luck!

Sidewalks needed

February 15, 2005

Dear Sir,

Most mornings I am a passenger in a car taking my niece to school at the Berkeley Institute. I have noticed and am using your paper as a tool because I know that the Ministries at times work very slowly; as to the fact why the sidewalk outside of the upper parking of the Berkeley School is not fit to be used! It is a bit run down. I watch the Northlands Primary School children walk on the opposite side of the road where there is no sidewalk at all and the traffic is absolutely heavy at that time in the morning.

The excuse about the new Senior School being built and they will fix it once the phase is done or something like that is not an excuse. The first thing to do would be to fix the sidewalk so that these children have a safe place to walk on their way to school.

So through your paper, I hope that the Works and Engineering Ministry and the Ministry for Education sees this letter and that some action is taken. These children are literally on the street walking to school. I also hope that the staff of the school asks the parents to make sure that their children are using the ?bit of sidewalk? that is available until such time as our Works and Engineering Ministry and Ministry for Education can see to the problem. I hope this is taken to heart before an accident happens.