On the very same Friday that Health Minister Colm Imbert was expressing his displeasure with what he termed a "scandal" to see expensive and useful machinery becoming obsolete at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, as he toured the facilities, a very dear friend who we will call Beth went through a most traumatic experience which was caused by the inoperative mammogram machine at the Mount Hope facility.
It is a well known fact that the words "lump" or "mass", especially in a woman's breast, whether eventually tested benign, is a very worrying thing.
A routine, annual, check on Beth's breast showed a mass which because of its position, was not found during her home examinations. Varying opinions brought about a six month lapse between the first discovery and a biopsy, which in layman's language is the removal of a piece of the lump for examination.
With great confidence in her surgeon who explained clearly that she would have to go to a private radiology centre in Port of Spain on the morning of her scheduled surgery at the EWMSC at Mount Hope, for a needle localisation, mammogram and insertion of a "guide wire" so he would know exactly where the lump was lodged, she arrived at the appointed time of 8 a.m. at the radiology clinic for the procedure.
And this is where the 'dog show' started as already shaky at the thought of first the procedure followed by surgery, she was given an injection, the guide wire which to her untrained eye looked like a needle the length of from elbow to wrist was painfully inserted into her left breast, and the mammogram done. It was then read by a radiologist who informed Beth that the guide wire was not in the precise position where he wanted it to be and so the entire process would have to be repeated, including this time the painful removal of the first wire so that the second could be inserted.
To compound an already difficult situation for Beth, by this time there were other patients being attended to and she was forced to wait around for two hours before completion of the repeat procedure, which was this time accurate, and she was sent on her way to Mt Hope in intense discomfort with "guide wire", which reminded her of a radio antenna, in her breast and taped down over the shoulder so as not to protrude from her shirt.
Understandably, the surgeon needed this "guide wire" for proper direction to the exact location of the lump. What is absolutely not acceptable is the fact that such an important piece of equipment, sorely needed in the fight against what is the leading cause of death in the women of this country, has been left unfixed and inoperative for four long years at this supposedly state-of-the-art facility.
Needless to say, Beth thought it best that her husband should not be told that he was driving a wife with an uncomfortable, guide wire insertion as "he would have freaked out. Luckily it was not a far drive and there was no traffic that hour of the day" says Beth, who arrived at the Mount Hope hospital two hours late for her surgical appointment. Also by the time a drained and weakened Beth arrived at the hospital, the poor surgeon who in a country where health-care was considered a number one priority and so would have had his patient being wheeled directly from a mammogram room to the theatre, was concerned about his patient whose pressure had also gone up in her then traumatised condition.
Since I know that the Minister of Health, who happens to be the Member of Parliament for the constituency in which I reside, is a man of action, this is an appeal to Mr Imbert to instruct the powers-that- be at Mt Hope to have this machine either immediately fixed, or replaced, as the women of Trinidad and Tobago have no right whatever to undergo such horrible experiences during what must already be a terrifying and trying time.
Says Beth "it was prayer that kept me going during that three hours as I was feeling real weak and wondering how much more my body could go through. Also I had faith in my surgeon who was extremely kind and understanding."