U.S. doctors help K.H.M.H. emergency room
According to health authorities, everyday the emergency room at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital sees an average of seventy patients… and that number gets bigger on the weekends and holidays. In light of this reality, medical officials need as much help as they can get. This week, that aid comes in the form of a husband and wife team…doctors from Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States who just happen to be specialists in emergency room management.
Fernando Cuellar, Chief of Staff, K.H.M.H.
“This way how these things are set up, the people who are offering the assistance would ask us what we need most and we would propose to them what would be most beneficial for us. Like presently, we have the two emergency room docs, for adults, one for paediatrics. The use of Emergency Department here at Karl Heusner is something big and we just need to get our skills into our people working here; it is definitely beneficial. They basically see the same type of patients; they basically have the same type of management as we do there in the States. Of course, the only difference is the lack of resources that we would have, technology and other stuff. But it works from both sides, because they themselves realise that with less things they can do more.”
Dr. Daniel Corboy, Emergency Room Physician
“I do think that the standard of care that is provided by the physicians down here is excellent. We both been very impressed with the quality of knowledge, the questions that they’ve generated towards us. And we definitely feel that the physicians are up to date in terms of their knowledge. Their major limitation is really what resources they have to do their job. So I don’t know if I would say it’s a criticism, I understand that it’s a financial constraint and that’s the way tings go. But I think that there is clearly an intention to gain knowledge in the areas and sort of get things that are not exactly extremely expensive, but within budget, sort of move from the current standard of care to the next standard of care.”
The Corboys will also tour medical facilities in the Cayo and Stann Creek districts. Their visit was organised through OMNIMED, a charitable organisation which routinely brings medical personnel to Belize to share their expertise with local doctors and nurses.
