BONE DENSITOMETRY SOON IN RIPAS

Bone Scan will soon be available in RIPAS!

As recently announced by the Department of Radiology RIPAS Hospital, Bone Densitometry service will be available in RIPAS as of May 2009. At last.. no longer will we be guessing whether is this osteopenic bone actually osteoporotic, confirming bony metastases, suspected hot spots for infections etc.etc..

We not sure yet whether it will be able to do Renal DEXA scans, but I'm sure with time the service will extend. This news will certainly be good news to Rheumatologists, Oncologists, Orthopods and many more.

This service will start in May 2009 and will be available only once a week to begin with. Every wednesday and only via appointment requests.. 6 per day. Requests forms will be distributed by the Deparment of Rheumatology soon.

Update on On-Call Allowances

We have received information that our proposal for on-call allowances have been approved. Unfortunately this does not include the Accident & Emergency & ICU doctors due to the fact that they operate on a shift system. According to a reliable resource, the department concerns are coming up with a new proposal to compensate for their work and it may come as some special critical care allowance.

As for the rest of the medical personel who are on full 24 hour rota system and are resident (i.e. on-site during on-calls), they should be entitled to claim for on-call allowances soon. For those who are non-resident on-calls, (this includes the specialists) they will only get paid when they come in to hospital during on-call period. This means after office hours and weekends only. The ministry is currently working out a system where this can be implemented and monitored easily and not be abused by others.

We have not received any confirmation as to the rates of the oncall allowances yet, but we hope the implementation of this system will not be to long ahead. Something to look forward to..

Proposed New Hospital Block for Mother & Child

These pictures were taken during the recent World Health Day 2009 exhibition. We manage to speak to one of the architects from the 'awarded' consultants Arkitek Idriss, and he said that the project is estimated to cost around $BND 60 million and if all goes well (i.e. budget approved) is due to start end of 2009 (Need to verify this information).

It is suppose to accomadate the Obstetrics & Gynae, Paediatrics, Accident & Emergency and the RIPAS Administration... hey what about Doctors Mess! We put that question forward too and still awaiting answers.

After doing a bit of asking around amongst the doctors, two very common comments were forwarded. One is that... it's quite an impressive and nice building... but secondly is that the worry about congestion it will create to an already congested Hopital area. Relevant issues considering we have just undergone a workshop for ensuring safe hospitals, and that one of the indicators of a structural risk is that the location of the the hospital... in this case right at the hill. I'm sure the professionals would have already thought about it, but we are not sure if the congestion problem can be minimized. Something to ponder...

In the following posts we will elaborate on another project that RIPAS is planning to undertake, which is renovation of the 4th floor (where the doctors mess is) and converting it into 2 full wards, the coverage on World Health Day 2009, and the update on On-Call Allowances...