The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

HEALTH Minister Dr Perry Gomez yesterday insisted that the inefficiencies within the public health care system underscore the need for National Health Insurance, saying the government hopes to upgrade facilities to improve care throughout the country.

Dr Gomez agreed that Sanigest Internactional’s scathing findings of Princess Margaret Hospital’s (PMH) response timing and rates of mortality were correct. He said those challenges further made the case for the urgency of universal health care.

The Sanigest report found that emergency response times for ambulances in New Providence was on average 34 minutes in 2012-2013.

It is well above the recommended eight minutes arrival time for advanced life support (ALS) calls. In Grand Bahama and Abaco, average response times were 17 minutes 51 seconds and 11 minutes 47 seconds respectively for the same time period.

Death rates for patients at PMH’s public wards are more than 100 per cent higher than those of patients in the facility’s private wards, the report also found.

However, Dr Gomez said that people should not “rush to judgment” over the report. He explained that making a comparison of public and private care in PMH’s private wards was like comparing apples to oranges.

He maintained that while it was ambitious for the government to implement NHI in nine months, they would put their best efforts forward to do it. They plan to roll out the first phase of the initiative in January 2016, one year after Value Added Tax implementation.

“Absolutely (the report is true),” Dr Gomez said, “and that is why we want to introduce the universal health care so that we could create the equity for health care. That is what we have been talking about. If anyone has heard me speak on this matter that is what it is all about.

“What Sanigest recorded I am sure is accurate. Now how does that compare with institutions in other countries, private ward versus public ward? Many of our sister nations in the Caribbean have the same set up. 

“I have never seen data like that from any place else to compare it with. So I wouldn’t rush to judgment on the figures. It is absolutely different and you can’t compare apples with oranges.

“It is a different kind of population that is in one part compared to the other. You have wealthier people in a private setting and poorer people in the other setting and so how do you compare mortality in the two things as a reflection of care?

“It might be the indigenous immune systems that the different populations have and so on. Many other  factors come into being and so I wouldn’t rush to judgment.”

Dr Gomez added that at the time of Sanigest’s presentation of their findings to Cabinet he was of the view that they had been overly critical.

He said the government had not made any decisions on the package of benefits it would go with.

Dr Gomez spoke following the Royal Bahamas Defence Force’s handing over of an ambulance to the Public Hospitals Authority. It was originally earmarked for Bimini but officials yesterday decided to send the ambulance to Grand Bahama, which has only one ambulance in operation at present.

In the coming months, officials said a fleet of 29 ambulances would be purchased in the lead up to NHI implementation.

PHA Managing Director Herbert Brown said that officials planned to ensure EMS response within four minutes of receiving emergency calls.