sept-2016

92 September 2016 - Business View Caribbean

Business View Caribbean - September 2016 93

Queen Elizabeth Hospital - Barbados

Getting better together

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) is Barbados’ pri-

mary acute care medical facility, as well as an accred-

ited teaching hospital affiliated with the University of

the West Indies, Cave Hill campus. The institution was

opened on November 14, 1964. “We celebrated 50

years in 2014,” says hospital CEO, Dr. Dexter James.

“We started with 464 beds and today we have 600

beds, providing a wide range of medical, diagnostic,

and therapeutic services.”

Regarding its surgical services, in addition to general

surgery, James says that QEH also offers minimal inva-

sive surgery, urology, ENT (ear, nose, and throat), gy-

necology, cardio-thoracic, orthopedic, dental, ophthal-

mology, and neurosurgery. “So there’s quite a range

of surgery that we currently provide that can meet the

needs of the population,” James says. “There are very

few cases that we now refer overseas for care and

these are mainly patients that require cardiology in-

terventions and a very, very few, if any, neurosurgical

cases. We have two neurosurgeons, two cardiovascu-

lar surgeons, and seven or eight specialists in ophthal-

mology - apart from general adult ophthalmology, we

have pediatric ophthalmology, ocular plastics, corneal,

retinal, and neuro-ophthalmology. So there are a num-

ber of specialties for eyes. In the case of obstetrics and

gynecology, we now have consultants in high risk preg-

nancies, and we have a consultant in gyne-oncology

who addresses all ‘below-the-belt’ cancers in women.”

Queen Elizabeth Hospital has 2,100 employees. “It’s

the largest single employer of public officers in any

one space,” James states. “We are a stand-alone facil-

ity with a number of departments having outpatient

clinics within the hospital. So, surgery has its own

outpatient clinics, as do pediatrics, obstetrics and gy-

necology, and, of course, internal medicine. So, when

patients are seen and surgical interventions are done,

and patients are discharged from the hospital, they

are then seen in outpatient clinics within the hospital,

and within the respective specialty where the proce-

dure was done.”

Because Barbados practices a socialized model of

healthcare, akin to the same type of model found in the

UK and Canada, any Barbadian national or permanent

resident of the island can take advantage of any of

QEH’s services at no charge. “It is funded by taxation,”

James says. “Once you are a citizen or permanent resi-

dent, healthcare is free at the point of delivery – you

don’t pay anything at all for healthcare. We receive our

allocation as approved by Parliament and funds are

then dispersed to us from the Treasury via the Minis-

try of Finance. Those funds are allocated across the

hospitals and health clinics in the country. The Queen

Elizabeth Hospital has been set up as a statutory body,

and therefore, we have a Board of Directors and an

executive management team responsible for the op-

erations and management of the hospital. So we can

partially direct how our funds are utilized to improve

the quality of services and where our priorities lie in

AT A GLANCE

WHO:

Queen Elizabeth Hospital

WHAT:

Barbados’ primary, acute care medical

facility

WHERE:

Bridgetown, Barbados

WEBSITE