The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

DIRECTOR of the Princess Margaret Hospital Mary Walker in a move to quell concerns over the hospital’s new electronic-pass system said on Friday that the initiative was introduced to improve the facility’s security services.

The new system, which was introduced last week, provides a more “proactive measure to security,” Ms Walker said.

She added that the hospital’s e-pass service would, in time, work to compartmentalise the operations at PMH.

The new e-pass system requires visitors to the Intensive Care Unit, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and operation theatres to be identified during their visit to the various facilities in the hospital.

She said: “We are in a society today where there is a lot of violence out in the community, and you would have heard from time to time some of that has spilled over into our facility.”

Surveillance

“We were looking for something along those lines to make sure that it would be an adjunct not only for the persons looking out for us from a security standpoint but from a surveillance standpoint.”

“Our goal is not to separate you from your loved one. We want to make sure that we can still do everything that we are supposed to do or required to do to restore them back to the best health, but you must realise that there has to be timed visits in order for that to occur.”

On Friday, The Tribune was given a tour of the new system.

Visitors to PMH are now required upon entering the hospital’s new Critical Care Block to stop at a security kiosk and provide a valid form with photo identification.

Subsequent to that, the visitor’s basic information – name, age and date of birth – are all logged into the facility’s system and a photo is taken.

The information gathered is then arranged on a printable id and then given to the visitor. That identification is then required to be worn for the duration of that person’s visit.

“The introduction of the e-visitor’s pass was to help us along these lines and bring us into the realm of best practices. In the entire planning of the new Critical Care Block we thought it be best to implement this system as we made the transition to this new section of the facility,” Ms Walker said.

“The system itself has the added feature of colour coding and so when we see you in here we can quickly identify where you are or at least where you should be. From a standpoint of daily operations, it is a big aspect of safety.

“When we would have introduced, several years ago, the system of ensuring that we could account for all of the staff in the building at any given time, that too was a computer operated system. This now is the next step, we can now account for the visitors in the building at any given time,” she added.

Frustration

Meanwhile, some visitors have already expressed frustration with the new system. One visitor classified the system as a “waste of time and money.”

The woman, who did not want to be identified, said measures were already in place to ensure that the hospital knew who was in the facility at any given moment.

She told The Tribune: “I can see what they are trying to do here, but truth be told this money could be spent in other ways. They already had a system in place that was working just fine. They gave you a visitor’s pass when you entered a ward and you returned it when you left.”

Officials present during The Tribune’s visit further explained the process of the new system, walking the disgruntled visitor through it.

Shortly after, the very same visitor backtracked on her complaint, admitting the concept of ensuring safety for everyone “made the absolute sense”.

When asked the importance of the new security measure Ms Walker said: “It lends to better management.”

Sections of the Critical Care Block were opened earlier this year. The new block, a project originally introduced by the Free National Movement in 2011, was originally set to open in June 2013. However, a number of challenges have plagued it since its inception under the former Ingraham administration.