On May 25, 2021, a team from the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives visited the Hulhumale Medical Facility. This visit was arranged in light of the concerns shared by the public on social media.
Since the Hulhumale Medical Facility is the prime site in the Greater Male Region responsible for treating Covid19 patients, the recent surge has caused an increase of patients exceeding the ideal patient:nurse ratio at the facility and therefore causing multiple issued in the operation, as observed by HRCM. Below is a list of challenges noted by HRCM based on their visit.
Delays in providing all relevant information to patients and caretakers
As a limited number of nurses are working on duty at any given time, the daily admitting, discharging and taking care of patients are delayed in the process. The necessary information to given to both patients and their caretakers take longer than exected to be delivered.
Delays in handing over food and items sent from home
A dedicated station at the facility accepts and delivers items sent to patients by their families. A dedicated person at the station further distributes the items to the dedicated station in the respective wards. However, since nurses and attendants are responsible to deliver the items to the patients from there, the workload keeps the nurses busy and hence delays occur in the patients receiving the items on time.
Complaints about the food provided by the facility
A dietician consults the patients and suggests a curatede meal plan for the patient according to their medical conditions. The facility then orders the required amount of food based on the number of patients in the facility at the time. However, HRCM noted complaints from patients that the food is not ideal to their conditions. HRCM further noted that patients have also complained about facing additional difficulties due to improper diets.
Congestion due to lack of space
Even though HMF is dedicated to admitting only Covid19 patients, the increase in the number of elderly patients and those who require assistance have stressed on the demand for caretakers to also stay in the facility. Patients have raised the concern of this congesting the available space in the wards, violating the physical distancing rules at times, says HRCM.
Challenges in informing families about changing in the patient's conditions
All patients admitted to the facility provide contact details of a family member to contact if there are any changes in information during the process. Teams assigned to deliver the message have delays in receiving doctor updates on the patient’s latest condition from the wards, hence considerable delays are occurring in delivering the information to the family of the patients.
Stress on the importance of providing mental support to the staff at HMF
Staff at the facility have been working continuously for a long period of time now and HRCM noted tha lack of mental support provided to the staff. The commission stresses on making the support more efficient.
Overworking and delay in payments for the cleaning staff
Complaints were received by the commission by cleaning staff who are work for 12 hours at a stretch without a break. They also reported not receiving their payments.
Some of the more concerning reports by those in the facility have now been lodged as official complaints and HRCM is now looking into the cases. The aim of the commission is to find solutions for the public and facilitate their rights at all times.