The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamian public health care sector lacks the capacity “to get as much done as we need to get done”, a leading surgeon said yesterday.

    Well-known cardiologist, Dr Duane Sands, while addressing  a Bahamas Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA) market education seminar on National Health Insurance (NHI), said: “One of the biggest tragedies in this whole thing is the elevation of expectation to a point that we cannot achieve in the short-term.

“When you say to people there will be no more cook-outs, that we will take care of every single medical problem that you have, that there will be no limit to the benefits, that cannot happen with anyone in any country with any economy anywhere in the world.

“Yet that his been the mantra of this NHI rollout. I am hoping that we get a reasonable NHI programme. I don’t believe it’s going to happen in the next three to six months.”

    Dr Sands added that despite the addition of the multi-million dollar Critical Care Block at Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH), which opened last January after a nearly two-year delay, there was still inadequate capacity in the public health sector.

“Despite the addition of our Critical Care Block we need a totally new emergency department, a step down unit, more operating room capacity, more ward capacity. We don’t have enough nurses, we don’t have enough allied health staff. We still do not have the ability to staff our hospital with high level staff at night,” said Dr Sands.

“The challenge is, with the so-called debate on NHI, that there has been no debate. All of the important stakeholders have been vilified, ostracised, shut up and marginalized. I happen to be one of them.

“Even though I support National Health Insurance, I believe what has been presented can only be considered an abomination. It is a shameful disgrace that we have arrived at this point by dismissing the insurance industry, the physicians and many of the stakeholders,” he added.

“We can do better than this. I am pleased that there seems to have been a softening of the rhetoric and a seeming willingness for us to work together and do things in a way that was done with VAT, where there was engagement and participation.”

    Bahamas Insurance Association (BIA) chairman, Emmanuel Komolafe, who also addressed the seminar  yesterday, said that with the implementation of NHI, some sacrifices will have to be made.

“Sacrifices have to be made. You have to give something. The doctors have to give something, the insurance companies have to give something and the brokers have to give something. If we think we can achieve this noble objective without giving up something, we are fooling ourselves,” said Mr Komolafe.