By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

IN times of real disaster that requires emergency response, doctors, nurses and other medical professionals must be spared from bureaucratic roundabout and be given a leeway to get a quick access to the treatment site, Dr. Thomas Shieh, president of the Guam Memorial Hospital’s medical staff, said yesterday.
Shieh said he shared the experiences of many doctors and nurses who were asked to take the long route to GMH instead of allowing them to drive through the shortest road. The roads in and around the Chalan San Vitores Loop, one of sites of the exercises, were closed to traffic during the first two days of the TopOff 4 event.
Being stuck in traffic for 25 minutes, Shieh said, he wasn’t able to get to GMH promptly. "Thank God, I was not responding to an emergency," Shieh said. "In an emergency, we all must ensure the emergency personnel,the doctor and nurses get into the hospital as fast as they can. What happened over the last two days, is that they were diverted into heavy traffic, which is the worse thing you can do," Shieh said.
In this exercise and for any emergencies, Shieh said, the government must ensure that doctors and nurses get in bycreating a separate lane for ‘emergency personnel to enable them to take the fastest way to reach the site where the patients are awaiting medical attention.
"Every minute count, any delays, patients die," Shieh said. Shieh said he had pointed out his concern to the GMH administration but his suggestion was ignored. Shieh also expressed disappointment that the medical staff wasn’t invited to participate in the exercises. He said Joe Mesa, who was identified by medical director Dr. James Stadler as the person "in-charge" of the medical command center, expressed his reluctance to listen to his briefing. "Joe Mesa, looks at Stadler oddly, ‘Is he part of ourhospital's excercise?’ Then he started to shake hishead, and then I said, com'on, as the president of theMedical Staff?
Anyway, he then said, "okay, but real short," Shieh narrated. Mesa could not be reached for comment as of press time. "As the president of the medical staff, you would think GMH would at the very least invite the medical staff in to the exercise even as an observer," Shieh said. He said excluding the medical staff office from the disaster drill was "a big mistake." "With any emergencies at any hospital, the medical staff cannot be excluded, and this they have failed as well," Shieh said.
During the morning briefing with the media, GMH administrator PeterJohn Camacho expressed confidence that in a real-life crisis, the hospital would manage to attend to disaster victims despite its limitations. GMH has a 172 bed capacity. In the course of the exercise, he said, some of the real patients had to be relocated to the Nursing Skilled Unit in Barrigada to accommodate the "disaster victims"
He also said he believes that, in times of crisis, the Naval Hospital will be willing to accommodate civilian patients to relieve the load from GMH.