The Tribune

By RUPERT MISSICK

JOHN Pinder, president of the Bahamas Public Service Union, said that the country’s largest union may be able to offer the uniformed branches of the civil service a solution to what is currently the most pressing issue they face today – the cost and scope of health care coverage.

The union leader said, however, that the problems faced by the country’s Defence Force, Police and Customs officers are indicative of a strained health care system fraught with overcrowding and exploitation.

Mr Pinder said the BPSU is willing to offer the same coverage for the dependants of uniformed branches they had prior to their current system at 10 per cent or at 20 per cent less than the plan they currently have.

However, Mr Pinder said that this offer would come with some stipulations.

“I believe that the current system is being abused in that persons are allowed to put their family members on it but I think the number of dependents needs to be limited.

“An officer who has 10 children on their plan should not be paying the same premium as a person with three,” he said.

The BPSU’s health insurance is one of the few in the country that provides lifetime coverage for members.

This fact, Mr Pinder feels, makes the insurance the best chance for Customs, Defence Force and Police officers to have good coverage.

He also said that consideration should be given to creating special areas for uniformed officers to receive critical care.

“It is very dangerous for an officer who may have been injured on the job, say during the course of an arrest, and have to lay in a bed or down the hall from a relative or another person he had to arrest some time ago,” Mr Pinder said.

At this point, he said, the Public Hospitals Authority should only be dealing with the question of critical care.

“They don’t have sufficient rooms to deal with in patient care and what we have is people turning up to the hospital to have simple things like dressings changed.

“We need to hire more retired nurses who would go to a person’s house for something like that instead of taking up time and resources in the hospital,” Mr Pinder said.