A possible health hazard looms as the classrooms at the nurses’ hostel at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital have become contaminated with asbestos and pigeon droppings. That complaint was made as Health Minister Fuad Khan conducted an extensive tour of the the facility yesterday. To add to the litany of woes, there have been reports of rapes, robberies, inadequate security, faulty plumbing, nursing students overstaying their time for months, hosting parties in their rooms, bringing male companions to their rooms for lengthy periods and also allowing their babies and young children to live in their rooms with them.
Principal of the School of Nursing, Valerie Sealey-Tobias, has urged Khan to tackle the problems immediately and not to allow yesterday’s exercise to become another public relations stunt. She said: “They come around and do their tours with the classrooms and with the hostel and promise things will be done and I am still to see that things would be done. “I feel very frustrated. The last time they did a tour was a month ago with the project management team and I told them I hope this one would bear fruit.”
Sealey-Tobias said she only became aware of the minister’s visit to the hospital yesterday when he “passed through the hostel.” Saying she did not get an opportunity to address her concerns to the minister, Sealey-Tobias added: “I do not know what was the reason for the minister’s tour. I only realised the minister was here when I saw him talking to the media.” Sealey-Tobias. who began her career as a nurse at the hospital many years ago, said there were no words to described the conditions at the hostel.
There are four functioning blocks at the hostel, each containing 24 to 30 rooms, and Block H was branded as “the worst” by Sealey-Tobias. She said repeated appeals to previous Governments went unanswered. The hostel, she explained, was used by local and foreign students, comprising the College of Science Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago (Costaatt) and the School of Nursing. Three classrooms have not been in use for several months, she said.
One, she said, was being used as an office while the other two have been condemned, as large junks of the ceiling have fallen due to a rotted structure. She added some 94 students from the Health Ministry used the other two existing classrooms, including the recreation room which has been temporarily converted into a classroom. Costaatt students use their own classrooms but due to very cramped condition there could be no sharing. she said.
Sealey-Tobias said the dilapidation of the ceiling began about a year ago following which endless letters have been written which only prompted assurances. Describing conditions at the room of the hostel as terrible, she spoke about malfunctioning toilets and areas infested with pigeons and cockroaches. “This is a good day because we are not seeing rats running all over the place,” she added.
Citing that the principal problem was lack of maintenance, Sealey-Tobias said problems were left to fester because all attention was focused on the hospital and not on the hostel. “All they deal with is issues relating to the hospital. You hardly get them to come in the back here at the hostel,” she added. Sealey-Tobias said while some students from far-flung areas had little choice but to stay at the hostel, others, however, were bent on staying after completing their three-year course and have even gone so far as to change the locks and keys to their rooms.
Fuad: Time to take responsibility
Conditions at the hostel and errant behaviour of some nursing students have been allowed to continue because no one wanted to take responsibility, Khan responded. Admitting the hostel was “in a state of disrepair,” Khan said there were plans to erect a possible day-care centre for the children of nursing students.
Students who have refused to hand over their keys also would be dealt with as Khan threatened to take eviction action. He said: “They have to be evicted if they are not supposed to be there but we will give them a time. We will see how best we can give back the nurses the area. “Nobody wants to take responsibility for their actions. It’s time we start taking responsibility to run a system.”
