St. Paul’s Medical Site

Basseterre, St. Kitts, October 7, 2019 (ZIZ News): The media tour continued at the St. Paul’s Community Centre where some of the crew of the US Navy Ship Comfort treated patients.

The site was outfitted with equipment to provide four main services which include general medicine for adults and paediatrics, optometry and dentistry.

Officer in charge of the medical site Lieutenant Commander Daniel Dean explained that persons are first asked to request a specific service that they want for the day under tents outside the compound; they are then led to another tent inside the compound where they are registered and given a document which is their medical record.

“We bring them in and register them, we put them in the waiting areas then they go into the specific care areas, the main medical area has the laboratory, the radiology, the physical therapy and nutrition and dietary counselling so once they see a medical provider they get that supplemental extra service and then they go out back and get their medications and leave , dental gets their care upfront then they go out to the pharmacy and if they need medication or antibiotics from getting their teeth taken care of then they’ll leave, optometry will go straight through to the back where they’ll get their glasses or whatever they need from optometry, pharmacy if necessary but everyone goes through discharge.”

He said that they have met their demand in the local community since they started operations on Saturday and they have the capacity to see more persons.

Lieutenant Commander Dean also spoke about cases of patients they were able to diagnose and treat.

“So we have identified new diagnosis, new conditions people come in with a non specific complaint like abdominal pain, we make a diagnosis we are able to get them specific imaging and then we ask the Ministry of Health if we’re able to treat it to help facilitate that care here on the island so we’ve identified new conditions for patients here.”

He also said so far persons are enjoying their experience.

Patients were seen enjoying their free walkers, crutches, canes and wheel chairs all courtesy of the USNS Comfort’s crew.

Lieutenant Commander Dean explained that there are services that are being offered at the Antioch Baptist Church site that are not being offered at the St. Paul’s site such as cardiology, neurology and dermatology.

Registration at the St. Paul’s medical site runs from 7:30am to 12noon.