The Tribune

By ALESHA CADET

Tribune Features Reporter

DESPITE budgetary limitations, new Minister of Health Dr Perry Gomez said he will strive to maintain a good standard at the Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH).

He said the government is still on schedule for completing its new Critical Care Block next year.

Dr Gomez said he is satisfied with the status of public health care in the Bahamas, especially on the Family Islands. He said it is an area of medicine that does not get the praise it deserves.

"The Public Health Department does outstanding work, particularly their nurses and their physicians. We have clinics on every island of our country, and our public health industries are excellent. In critical care, we can improve I suppose in terms of having a better network in getting people into our tertiary center more quickly," said Dr Gomez.

"Health needs its own funding and that is what National Health Insurance (NHI) does. Right now the Ministry of Health competes with all of the other government ministries for a portion of the pie, that is the public treasury. Health needs its own dedicated fund and that is what NHI was all about. It is a financing mechanism for health care," said Dr Gomez.

Speaking about plans for PMH moving ahead, he said: We have to strengthen the institution in various areas. You see things in progress here built on what we have. There seems to be a lot happening, if you look at the critical care block, that is just one example."

"As we do things like that, we can improve what we do in critical care. We have a multi-purpose Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at PMH now with nine beds and we will be getting one with 20 beds. All that means is more people in ICU at any one given time, we should have less of a problem having people to wait to get an ICU bed," said Dr Gomez.

Managing Director of the Public Hospital Authority, Herbert Brown said the minister is correct and the Critical Care Unit is on target to be completed by next year. He said the physical structure is going up very quickly and he sees no reason why they will not meet the contractual schedule for June of 2013 or the budget estimate.

"To this point we would have spent about $23.5 million. The construction project is going to cost inclusive of the duty of $64 million and we expect that we will be spending in excess of $30 million to ensure that we have a first class facility for the Bahamian people," said Mr Brown.

Space is not only a problem in ICU, but the high murder rate has also made space a concern at the PMH morgue, said Chief Hospital Administrator Coralie Adderley.

"You would then appreciate that the space even to receive families and relatives is very small and so that is an area that we probably will be looking to the minister and others to work with us in the coming year or so to address. But the morgue is challenged. We do have a number of challenges there, but we continue to work," said Ms Adderley.

Dr Gomez said the Bahamas has come a long way in medicine and all of its roots are right at PMH, so he hopes over his time as minister, he can continue some of the work he did earlier, in helping promote the hospital to be the best it can be.

"I always knew we could be better than we were. And I think that still is the case, now we can be better than we are as leaders of health care in our region," said Dr Gomez.