6
guyanatimesgy.com
MonDAY, February 3, 2014
Major transformation for Port Mourant Hospital – director BY NAFEEZA YAHYA
O
ften criticised for its poor healthcare delivery, the Port Mourant Hospital is to undergo major transformation with the aim of rebuilding citizens’ confidence in the state-run medical facility. During an interview with Berbice Times, director of the hospital complex, Dr Vinashri Khirodar said her main focus is to rebuild the confidence of the people, so that they can utilise the services of the hospital. “Patients would come, but, for some reason or the other, they do not want to be admitted, or even if they do, they would take selfdischarge and that tells me something is wrong… at that time, I sat down with the staff and midwives of the various health centres and discussed how we will boost the image of the hospital…
Problem
“It’s a confidence problem we need to fix, we need to put that confidence back into the people so that patients can utilise the services of the hospital”. She outlined that her focus is also on expanding the medical services of the hospital. Since Dr Khirodar took up the post in mid September as director of the Port Mourant Hospital, several new services were added. These include the gynaecology clinic, the high risk clinic and a diabetic/nutritional school. She related that the high risk clinic was implemented so as to reduce the number of patients going to New Amsterdam Hospital to attend their high risk clinic. A patient can now visit Port Mourant and save time, as well as spend a maximum of 30 minutes with doctor. In addition, Dr Khirodar said special emphasis will be placed on the maternity unit. “We found that over the years deliveries at the hos-
pital declined,” she said. In 2013, the hospital recorded a total of 17 deliveries. In addition, surgeries were also done for these patients. The hospital’s target for 2014 is 250 deliveries, a number the director is optimistic they can achieve. The hospital is now equipped with a fully functional nursery and incubator which can cater to the needs of up to three newborns. One of the challenges faced was expectant mothers going to New Amsterdam or Skeldon Hospital to deliver their babies; however, midwives who would usually do deliveries will now take the patients to the Dr Vinashri Khirodar Port Mourant Hospital for deliveries and in casthe patients would be sent es of complications, the hospital would utilise an am- to the hospital. A managebulance to transfer the pa- ment committee comprising tient for surgical interven- several influential persons in the community was set up to tion. help manage the hospital. The institution’s x-ray deSurgeries Dr Khirodar noted that partment, which was built in she is also hoping to restart 2013, is now completed and surgeries at the hospital lat- will be opened shortly. The er in the year. The hospital laboratory department has also has a new batch of nurs- also extended its services to es and eight doctors who are cater for malaria testing, veworking tirelessly to ensure nereal disease research labothe needs of patients are well ratory (VDRL) testing, dentaken care of. “These nurses gue and biochemistry testing. Previously, the laboratory and midwives will be helping only catered for basic tests. me, this year will be better. Each health centre has a In addition, the hospital also nurse/midwife... what these conducts chronic, diabetic nurse would do is take the and hypertensive clinics evepatients to New Amsterdam ry Wednesday and Thursday, so what we will do now is we while the angiology/ diabetic will bring them here, once it’s foot care clinic is conducted not high risk or do not need every Monday. Plans are also currenttheatre services... the delivly in place to open a visual ery will be done here.” During the last year, the inspection with acetic acid hospital’s extensive home- (VIA) clinic and a geriatric based care programme saw clinic. Further, the hospital 84 patients being treated from the Eversham to Fyrish plans to train a number of people from the community area. According to the director, to do basic testing. The hospipatients can have as many tal plans also to host a blood as three visits per month and drive, where a total of 300 if there are cases where peo- units of blood is expected to ple require hospitalisation, be collected.
Bonding with our children through everyday reading
W
hether or not we have children, most will agree that reading opens the door to a child’s early academic success and imparts a love of learning, which can lead to a higher grade in every subject. When a child learns to read at an early age, he/she has better overall knowledge and become more fluent readers which is essential in today’s world. Children also tend to have a better attention span and better concentration as well. And when early readers are able to recognise a larger number of words by sight, it enables them to learn about their surroundings. When young children are engaged in reading, their proficiency enables them to comprehend more of what they are reading. And in so doing, they have the potential to become knowledgeable researchers, with the capability to study effectively information from a variety of sources, such as from magazines, websites, etc. According to special education teacher Jennifer Brannon, early reading can help your child develop critical Narine Dat Sookram thinking skills. She says, “Preschool through kindergarten is primarily focused on letter/sound recognition, which means developing phonemic awareness skills and in kindergarten, phonics.” Children are reading in kindergarten and in the first grade, they are expected to start thinking critically and answering questions about what they read. One strong way of fostering these critical-thinking skills is to ask questions when you read to/with your child. For example, ‘why do you think (that character) did that? What would you do? What do you think will happen next? Why?’” For those reasons, we are thrilled that the staff at the Kingston Nursery in Skeldon, Berbice have taken the initiative to open their first library at the school, with books that were donated by a Canadian charity, Active Vision Charity Association, an organisation that was founded by yours truly with one of its missions to help provide the schoolchildren in Guyana with textbooks and other school supplies. When children learn effective reading strategies, they can pick up the necessary knowledge and information, which will enable them to excel in whatever they do. The interesting thing is that early readers tend to become lifelong readers and lifelong learners as well. This is essential in our everyday living. So why not take that leadership role where our children can have that opportunity, so that they can grow up to be champions in society? Parents can be a vital part of this whole learning process, where they can read, talk and sing to their child every day, even if it’s only for a few minutes at a time. It is probably a good idea to make reading our “go to” activity when we are waiting or in between activities. In other words, take books with our children everywhere we go, because this will build a relationship with us and our children by snuggling and talking as we read. It makes both us, and reading, an important part of their life.
Who killed Joshua Chunilall? BY NAFEEZA YAHYA
J
oshua Chunilall, a 12-year-old of Letter Kenny Village, on the Corentyne Coast was like any other child his age; he was jovial, full of energy and very kind-hearted. He was reluctantly taken out of school early by his parents to enter the world of work, so that they could make ends meet. He worked on his family’s small watermelon farm in the nearby village of Johns, just before the seashore. He was very friendly with everyone and was always willing to give a helping hand and would even stand guard at the farm to keep animals from destroying the crop. The lad also performed other chores associated with farming. On Tuesday, August 21, 2012, like any other day, Chunilall left home to go check on the farm to ensure no cattle were in the farm. As it got late and he did not return, his family decided to venture to the farm to see if he was still there. They searched, but did not see him there and as night fell, they figured he had probably returned home.
Dismay
When they arrived home, to their dismay, Joshua was not there and instantly, they became more worried. They attempted to lodge a missing person’s report at the police station, but were advised that a 24-hour period must elapse before the person can be considered missing. As such, they left and continued the search. The next day, they continued searching for the lad because he did not return overnight as they had hoped. By this time, 24 hours had elapsed and a formal report was lodged. Continued search efforts proved futile, since the child was nowhere to be found. Eventually, on Thursday – two days after Chunilall went missing – around 13:30h, the search party stumbled upon his badly decomposed body in a nearby canal. The body bore several marks of violence and was found face down in the canal. His head, feet, and hands bore marks of violence and his tongue appeared to be burnt. There were also several cuts about his
body. A post-mortem examination performed on Chunilall revealed that there was mud in his lungs, suggesting that his face was forced into the canal and kept there until he died. The family members were inconsolable and were in a state of shock, as they tried to come to grips with the child’s tragic death and to figure out who could have committed such a cruel and vile act against a little boy. His mother, Kowsilla Chunilall couldn’t bear to view the body of her son, and fainted several times as a result of shock. She started to recall incidents leading up to that fateful day and recalled seeing two boys whom her son told her were shooting birds out at sea, not far from their farm. She also recalled giving them a piece of rope after her son insisted. The same two lads were seen accosting her son over a missing gun a few days earlier and asking questions regarding who was at the site where they usually shoot birds. She then related this information to the police who arrested the two youngsters, and during police investigations, they named five other persons who were subsequently arrested; however, they all were released.
Tortured
The grieving mother is of the opinion that her son was tortured and murdered over something that he saw while tending to the farm and strongly believes the two prime suspects at the time of her son’s murder are involved or know who committed the act. She also accused the police of taking bribes, since nothing more came out of the matter after the suspects were released. The Chunilall family made several enquiries at the station, but always got the same answer “we nah have no new information as yet”. They are pleading for anyone with information to come forward and inform them as they want justice to be served, so that they can feel a sense of closure. What was it that Joshua saw or did that could have caused someone to torture the 12-year-old lad and eventually kill him, remains the question on everyone’s minds.