Willemstad, April 20th, 2023. – Curaçao Medical Center’s (CMC) Management Board regrets and completely disapproves of yesterday morning’s action by the trade union, CBV, and a small group of Operating Room (OR) employees. As a result of this action, several surgeries had to be cancelled due to lack of personnel. “CBV’s political agenda to paint a bad picture of the Board is unfortunate and is not in the best interest of patient safety or the community of Curaçao,“ says the Board.
Mrs. A. Mathilda, Chairwoman of CBV, claims that OR employees are unfairly treated and intimidated. She also claims that the Board wants to blindly impose a new department structure. The Board states that it does not recognize the assumptions by Mrs. Mathilda and vehemently denies these. In addition, the new structure that Mrs. Mathilda refers to is a well thought through strategy required for the JCI accreditation that follows quality and safety requirements for the OR complex.
The Board acknowledges that not all decisions and changes are easy, but in order to run a sustainable organization, deliver high-quality care and guarantee patient safety certain specific steps are necessary. One of these includes ensuring CMC obtains the Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation, which is a requirement for the hospital’s license.
JCI defines quality of care and includes a list of 1,200 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that have to reach an average score of 98%. Unfortunately, the baseline compliance measurement carried out in October 2020 showed that CMC was largely not compliant.
To reach the minimum requirement, a JCI implementation program consisting of several phases was rolled out in 2020 to implement policies, standards and protocols. Through this date, thanks to the collaborative effort of the accreditation team and CMC personnel, 95% of the policies have been completed. The OR complex also requires some change in its two focus areas: Anesthesia & Recovery versus Surgery & Central Sterilization. This entails dual management of the two focus areas, with two department heads instead of one. This information was presented to the OR team last Friday and was discussed further with the team this morning. In this meeting it was agreed to start a core team consisting of personnel from the OR, Human Resources, OR Management and the Board to fine tune the new structure and bring clarity on all levels.
In 2022, CMC conducted an employee satisfaction survey of which management strives to reach an 80% satisfaction rate. Of the 624 respondents, the majority scored their satisfaction rate between 50% and 75%. The results were as follows:
1. 1.3% of employees are between 0% and 25% satisfied
2. 34% of employees are between 25% and 50% satisfied
3. 55.7% of employees are between 50% and 75% satisfied
4. 9% of employees are between 75% and 100% satisfied
The OR complex specifically scored 74.52%, which is just slightly under the 80% requirement, so there is some work to be done to increase this score.
On August 18th, 2022, the Board held a workshop followed by a happy hour with the OR team to openly discuss the work environment and to receive specific improvement points. During this session, they expressed the reality of personnel shortage and the resulting pressures and the desire for salary increase and the same conditions as their colleagues in the Netherlands. An important point that came forward was the lack of structure and mutual agreements in the department. This is a valid point that will be resolved through JCI’s new structure. The Board was delighted that a grand majority of the personnel also expressed being happy with the team and the atmosphere they work in.
The Board is receptive to expressions of discontent from the personnel and values all recommendations aimed at enhancing the satisfaction of the OR personnel. While the Board seeks to ensure that employees’ voices are heard, it always prioritizes the preservation of patient safety and the quality of care.
