Remote islanders complain about poor health facilities

ST HELENA islanders are “deeply concerned” over the lack of proper medical facilities on the island after a young girl had to be evacuated by ship to neighbouring Ascension island to be airlifted to Britain for treatment of suspected meningitis.

Little Abbey Thomas, 7, whose mother works for the island government’s environmental programme, took ill last week.

On Friday she was evacuated by a Dutch heavy lift ship, the Traveller, on its way from the Far East to the Caribbean. The ship had changed course to sail to the south Atlantic island in response to an emergency call.

The child was then delivered to Ascension island where an aircraft waited. She flew to Britain on Saturday night.

The shortage of equipment and skills was a big problem on the island, while the attitude of medical staff also left much to be desired, said islander Bruce Salt, a local businessman and amateur radio operator.

“At one stage there were seven doctors here and getting an appointment with one was difficult,” Salt said.

“At any one time there are normally four or five doctors resident on the island on two-year contracts with overseas leave taken every six months.

“In the last three years or so, a visit to the hospital outside of normal working hours to see a doctor results in the nurse talking to the doctor over the phone without him coming in to see the patient and to prescribe medication – this is utterly appalling.

“We have lost a number of residents to this negligent behaviour. Heart-attack patients have been rushed to the hospital outside of normal working hours only to be sent home and told to come back the next day – and of course without having that critically needed care, the patients had died.”

Salt described the medical facilities as “rather basic”, but said the government had been improving the facilities at the hospital recently. “But they still have a long way to go,” he said. “When funding became available, the government chose to open their own FM radio station to compete with the privately funded station Saint FM to the tune of £350 000.

“Our hospital is understaffed and our nurses are grossly underpaid and over-worked.”

While islanders had to live with insufficient medical help, they also faced the very real prospect of emergency radio calls not being heard, Salt said.

“St Helena Radio put out the emergency call for Abbey and initially it was a ‘ loose call’ to all ships until one of the retired senior operators was called in to compile a proper ‘pan-pan’ call,” he explained.

“The information in the ‘pan-pan’ call to all ships requested that they respond to St Helena Radio and many did, but due to an inefficient radio station at St Helena Radio it would be fair to assume that they weren’t being heard as the ship calls frequently went unanswered.

“A local fishing vessel from the island reported hearing nothing of one transmission, instead only the very high frequency (VHF) transmission was audible.”

But for Abbey Thomas and her mother, Belinda Thomas, things appeared to have turned out well.

“I can happily report that Abbey’s arrival at the neighbouring island of Ascension was brisk and precise,” Salt said.

“The Traveller arrived in the early evening in the cover of darkness on Saturday, the Ascension Island government boatmen brought the medivac party ashore, into the waiting ambulance, straight out to the airstrip and within minutes the small plane that had arrived on Ascension the previous day in preparation to airlift the medivac, was in the air.

“Meanwhile, down below, the Traveller was leaving Clarence Bay to resume her voyage.”