Last Updated on 8 years by Publishing Team

Nadi hospital focuses on customer care

The appointment of two more medical officers (doctors) at the Nadi hospital has significantly improved the healthcare services as patients spend less time waiting to receive medical treatment in the general out patients department (GOPD).

This was revealed to the Minister for Health and Medical Services Mr Jone Usamate while visiting the hospital on Saturday as he continues to monitor services health facilities around the country.

Numerous complaints were lodged to the Health Ministry and through social media recently on irregularities at the hospital and this has drawn lot of criticism from the residents of Nadi.

The subdivisional medical officer at Nadi hospital Dr Shah informed Mr Usamate that the administration has mapped out stringent strategies to enhance medical services to cater for the 94,000 residents of Nadi.

“Some of the complaints were blown out of proportion but we have introduced new measures such as allocating the doctors and nurses to constantly attend to patients in various areas and this has increased the efficiency in the health service delivery”, said Dr Shah.

Mr Usamate also reminded staff to maintain the current level of service delivery while projecting the path to improving the services and determine the strategies to achieve that desired outcome.

“You must first establish where you are and what more needs to be done to enhance the service delivery and map out strategies to achieve the desired outcome”, Mr Usamate said.

We must at all times be mindful of the values of the ministry such as equity, customer focus, edge etc, so that we are able to address patients’ needs”, Mr Usamate added.

Meanwhile the Health Ministry will look into the provision of other resources to consolidate staff efforts in addressing an increase in patient numbers, which has doubled in the past few years.

Patient numbers have grown from 50,000 to 100,000 and this has stretched the workload at the hospital, but the commitment from the staff has been very instrumental to adjusting to this increase.

The Nadi Hospital has also embarked on plans to establish a footcare clinic in the near future as the only footcare clinic is available at the Lautoka hospital in the western division.

Mr Usamate later visited the Lautoka Divisional Hospital and addressed the staff on similar issues.