Other docotrs may be credentialled but will not be invited by the hopsital to join the medical staff.
Following the enforcement of the clause on our Medical Education Fund, many courtesy doctors who have not availed themselves of the hospital's facilities have decided to end their courtesy status. Apparently, almost half of them have dropped out.This was partly to discourage doctors who claimed to be affiliated with SJMC and therefore benefited from the reputation of SJMC but never reciprocated by referring their patients to the hospital.
In spite of repeated warnings from Dr. Husain, the OT Subcommittee Chairman, some members of the surgical fraternity have been totally recalcitrant and are repeatedly and persistently very, very late (I have on record, one case that was delayed 121 minutes). Dr. Jacob Thomas has promised to take this up personally and hopefully, some results will come from this. Keep your fingers crossed. The administration has been informed that some consultants are asking the Medical Officers to fill up the consent form which they themselves have signed earlier on. The MAB frowns upon this as being unethical and legally wrong. Such behaviour is strongly discouraged and may result in disciplinary action against the consultant concerned. In order to have a name which reflects its expanded roles, the Ambulatory Care Subcommittee has asked for a change in its name to Ambulatory and Nursing Care and Infection Control Subcommittee. There will be a contest to be held once the name change has been finalised to see whether anyone can say the name in one breath without breathing in between. Although the discussion on our GASBoard on the above matter was none too encouraging, the matter was nonetheless brought up to the MAB. The board has in principal agreed to allow the midwives to order the Hb on admission if none has been done in the last 30 days. Again, with the confidence based on the underwhelming support that I received from all of you on the GASBoard, this matter was brought up to the MAB. Dr. Jacob Thomas explained that in the South Tower, all the OT's shared a common air-conditioning system and therefore it was not possible to control the temperature in each OT individually. However, there whould not be a problem doing so in the North Tower and he promised to look into the matter. If you all remember, there was a major power blackout in SJMC on 23 January 1999 with no power even to the emergency electrical outlets for 17 minutes from 09:48 h to 10:05 h. This matter was brought to the attention of the administration.Dr. Jacob Thomas replied that he was fully aware of the incident. An unexpected surge of current had accurred that day resulting in the "tripping" of the protection relays cutting of power to the OT. Although the back-up generators kicked in 7 seconds later, no power was delivered to the OT's because the relays had "tripped".
He believes that this was unavoidable as if the relays had not "tripped", many of the electrical devices may have suffered significant damage from the surge of current. The hospital is investigating how this can be avoided in the future and has engaged external consultants to help solve the problem.
There have two recent incidents brought to the attention of the MAB where the consultants verbally abused the staff when they were perceived to have been insubordinate and had blatantly refused to carry out the consultant's orders. Members are advised to refrain from using abusive language or from reprimanding the staff in the presence of patients or their relatives. This can bring about bad publicity to the hospital and also expose them to both disciplinary action from the hospital and legal action from the law.Doctors are advised to bring up the matter to the nurse managers concerned, the relevant subsommittee Chairmen, or as a last resort, to the MAB. Please do not take the law into your own hands. If you have to reprimand the staff, please bring them out of ear-shot from the patients and visitors and avoid any abusive language.
As doctors, we must maintain a certain level of decorum and etiquette in our
relationship with staff, patients and relatives.