The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Medical Association of the Bahamas (MAB) was yesterday seeking to clarify which doctors have signed on for the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme, its president saying “some type of misrepresentation is going on”.

Dr Sy Pierre told Tribune Business the MAB had issued an e-mail, asking physicians to confirm whether they have agreed to become NHI care providers, after being contacted by doctors who said their names were on the list without their consent.

The e-mail, obtained by Tribune Business, tells MAB members and doctors: “With regards to NHI physician and specialty registration, there seems to be a disconnect between what the NHI Secretariat is reporting and what the physicians are reporting.

“That is, the NHI Secretariat has put out a list of physicians that have purportedly signed up as providers. However, a number of physicians and physician groups have contacted the Medical Association and emphatically stated that the NHI Secretariat’s claim is false.

“The MAB would like confirmation of this list. For ease of reference we are asking the physicians that have signed up as primary care providers with NHI to confirm via e-mail that they have.”

Explaining why he issued the e-mail, Dr Pierre told this newspaper: “A few doctors spoke to us and said there were a lot of people’s names on that list who have not signed up.

“A lot of physicians called me and asked me to send it out to see who signed up. It means NHI put a lot of physicians on the list that have not signed up.”

Dr Pierre said he was unsure how many doctors were complaining they had been included on the NHI provider list without consent, but the MAB’s e-mail was seeking to find out and uncover who put them there.

“It’s clear there are a lot of doctors on the list that have not signed up,” he told Tribune Business. “They don’t want their names to be on the list if they’re not signed up.....There seems to be some type of misrepresentation going on. Everyone is looking for answers right now.”

Dr Pierre said he was also contacted yesterday by Dr Macumba Miller, acting president of the Bahamas Doctors Union (BDU), the junior doctors’ organisation, who told him they had never seen the list.

When they finally obtained a copy, Dr Pierre said Dr Miller told him that “a lot” of the doctors named “have not signed up”.

Healthcare industry sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said several doctors have already contacted Dr Delon Brennen, the NHI project manager, asking for their names to be removed from the care provider list.

This newspaper was told that Dr Brennen had requested written confirmation from the doctors or their legal representatives, with some providing such yesterday. It is unclear yet whether their names have been removed, and Dr Brennen could not be reached for comment before press deadline last night.

The NHI Secretariat, in closing the first round of doctor registration, said around 60 private sector physicians had signed on for the scheme out of 306 registered primary care providers.

While this represented less than 20 per cent of the private sector physician population, the NHI Secretariat said it had sufficient numbers to launch the $100 million primary care phase, and they would be supplemented by doctors from the public sector.

Dr Pierre’s comments and e-mail, though, raise fresh questions about how many private doctors have actually signed on for NHI, and whether there are enough to provide quality care for the number of Bahamians anticipated to enrol as patients.

The MAB president and others suggested that many doctors at the public clinics were named as NHI providers without their knowledge merely because they worked within the Government healthcare system.

The actual NHI provider list as at April 26, which has been obtained by Tribune Business, shows numerous public sector doctors listed under the various clinics they provide services at.

“There’s a few junior doctors that have been put on there, put down as providers, without their knowledge,” one doctor, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Tribune Business.

“They’ve listed a bunch of doctors in the public clinics who were unaware they had been signed up.”

Another doctor, also speaking on condition of anonymity, added: “I know of a couple of people on that list who are not interested in being part of NHI. The Government took it upon themselves to sign them up unbeknownst to them.

“This is how the Government is flamming the Bahamian people to make them think they have physicians signed up.....

“I’m getting calls left, right and centre, like many other healthcare providers, saying: ‘Why are you not on the list? I thought this was a private-public partnership where I could choose my physician’.”

The doctor added: “Now, they’re learning that most of the physicians have not signed on. But all have been very supportive of the decision we’ve made with regard to NHI.

“People know it’s a joke, and the Government wants to take over the whole scenario of providing healthcare for our country. They’ll never have the level of resources, financing and infrastructure to provide that level of service.”

Several private doctors yesterday suggested that the confusion and uncertainty over the NHI provider list, and rushed nature of doctor and patient enrolment, provided further evidence that the scheme was being used as a pre-election vote-catching ploy by the Christie administration.

Tribune Business’s attention was drawn specifically to Abaco, where three doctors - Dr George Charite, Dr Norman Gay, the former minister of health, and Dr Marc Bernard - are listed as the island’s only NHI primary care providers.

Abaco-based sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Dr Bernard lived off-island and only returns once a month. Dr Gay, too, was said to be based on New Providence, with no set schedule for being on Abaco.

Tribune Business was also told that doctors on the NHI list have yet to sign contracts to be providers, with compensation methods, rates and who will be paying physicians all unanswered questions.