The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A well-known physician yesterday said Bahamians can “bank on something called NHI” being rolled-out in the first week of April 2017, although he expressed serious doubt over the level of healthcare industry readiness.

Dr Duane Sands, the FNM’s candidate for Elizabeth, told Tribune Business: “I think that this is an issue of definitions. Something will be done. Whether or not it makes any sense, whether or not it is a chaotic, confused mess, will not matter.

“They’re [the Government] going to roll-out something and call it NHI. They have come up with an arbitrary deadline and they are not going to go beyond that deadline.  The fact that very little is in place doesn’t matter.

“This was a promise made by the Government. It was supposed to happen in the first year and it didn’t happen. It was supposed to happen in January 2016, then 2017. Now we have another deadline with an election looming. You can bank on it; something called NHI is going to be rolled out the first week in April.”

    At the end of January, the National Health Insurance (NHI) Secretariat announced the launch of the scheme’s primary care physician registration. NHI will be rolled out in five phases, according to government officials, beginning with the registration phase, which started last year with the issuance of the new NIB smart cards. That phase is followed by the enrollment, primary healthcare coverage, select catastrophic coverage, and full benefits coverage phases, respectively, according to the NHI website.    

    Primary care services under NHI were set to begin in April 2016. However, days before the roll-out, Dr Perry Gomez, minister of health, said it would be delayed by six months. The Government later set January 2017 as the target date, and last week Prime Minister Perry Christie said NHI would be rolled-out during the first week in April.

“It’s not the idea, it’s not the concept, it is the inability to bring these ideas to life that has been the challenge,” said Dr Sands.

“We don’t even have a public insurer identified.  April 1 is just weeks away. You have to set up a public insurer and sign up all of the providers. Then you have to enroll patients with particular providers.”

According to the NHI Secretariat, three bids were received from unnamed Bahamian and international groups to manage the public insurer.

    “Let’s say you have 200 doctors and let’s say you have 100,000 patients; someone is going to have to assign those 100,000 patients to those doctors that are signed up,” Dr Sands added.

“Imagine the logistics nightmare. How do you know which provider is supposed to see which patient? Everything that we do, particularly when we’re spending hard-earned public funds taken form the Bahamian people, we ought to ensure that Bahamians get value for money.

“Conceptually it’s a great idea. We want to improve the quality of healthcare for our people, but every technocrat would acknowledge that they are not ready.”