The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

OPPOSITION leader Dr Hubert Minnis yesterday blasted Health Minister Dr Perry Gomez for his claim that there are not enough beds in the new critical care block under construction at Princess Margaret Hospital.

On Monday, Mr Gomez said there will only be 20 adult beds in the unit – saying that in 50 years, while the population has quadrupled, the number of intensive care beds has not even doubled.

But after touring the critical care block along with other FNM officials, Dr Minnis said: “I listened to the Minister of Health and he was talking about the number of beds in ICU, he was concerned about a shortage. I’m not concerned.

“First of all, I’m not sure how serious I can take the Minister of Health. That’s a minister who couldn’t even remember whether he attended (Peter) Nygard’s function before or after he was Minister of Health... But in either event, 20 beds is quite adequate.

“We would have done a disease distribution survey, we would have done a utilisation survey, and therefore we would have known how many beds were needed at this particular time.

“They look at the population, they look at the disease distribution, they look at the number of individuals that utilise the beds today and the type of diseases that utilise the beds today and therefore determine how many beds are needed today, how many beds are needed 10 years from today and how many beds are needed 20 years from today.”

Dr Minnis hailed the critical care block as a “state-of-the-art facility”.

He had toured the 90 per cent complete block a day after senior government officials visited.

The FNM leader said: “I think they are doing an excellent job. I think Bahamians are going to be very, very happy. I think other parts of the Caribbean would obviously want to see what is happening here. They would even want to come here for their surgical procedures.

“I think the building is excellent. It’s compliant to what we designed. We’re going to use a tele-facility.

“If a patient was being operated upon and a doctor needs a second opinion, sometimes he has to wait for another surgeon to come from somewhere here in New Providence or in some cases he may have to close the patient and that patient must subsequently travel to whichever destination for another opinion.

“With this type of technology though, that patient can be on the operating theatre and if another opinion is necessary they can beam in to John Hopkins, Harvard or any institution and they can get that second opinion.

“And if a surgeon is not certain of a particular procedure, he can be assisted by a specialist throughout the world, be it in Germany, Japan or wherever. That’s state-of-the-art technology, so individuals wouldn’t necessarily have to travel any more.”

He added: “When the building was designed, we had a population becoming older and as you age there are new disease entities that you experience so you find a lot of patients today would require joint, knee, hip replacements.

“Those diseases today cost $40-$50,000 and a lot more depending on where you go so it’s cost-prohibitive.

“But we’ve made provisions so Bahamians wouldn’t necessarily have to travel anymore and we have specialists in the Bahamas who can do those procedures. Theatres are also designed so we could do the necessary heart surgeries, which we can do when we have the necessary equipment.”