The Tribune

By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT

tsmith-cartwright@tribunemedia.net

AFTER blaming the government’s easing of restrictions on the recent surge in COVID cases, former Minister of Health Renward Wells has come under heavy fire from the chairman of the Progressive Liberal Party who has referred to him as a “total failure as a minister.”

PLP chairman Fred Mitchell, who is also Minister of Foreign Affairs and Public Service, responded to Mr Wells, who would not accept the suggestions that the Free National Movement’s early election call might be responsible for the surge.

In a voice note that circulated this week, Mr Wells referred to Mr Mitchell as “daft when it comes to science”.

Mr Mitchell did not take kindly to this and lashed out in a voice note of his own. “This man, Mr Wells, as he is known in polite company, left a healthcare system in shambles… can’t get medicine in the hospital, no beds in the hospital, people sleeping in tents, lying on gurneys getting wet by the rain and 16,000 infections of COVID, 500 deaths in counting,” Mr Mitchell said. “All of this happened when he was Minister of Health.

“Renward Wells has the temerity, the bloody nerve to talk about who is daft. I only wish we were in the school yard where I can tell him which part of his lineal antecedents are daft. This total failure as a minister would dare open his mouth to talk this drivel.”

Mr Mitchell also said: “The Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Michael Darville has the facts. What we are experiencing today with COVID… the deaths and infections… is because Dr Hubert Minnis called a general election in the middle of a pandemic. The FNM held rally after rally and helped to spread COVID. So we are in the mess we are in today.”

Mr Wells suggested that Mr Mitchell was being ignorant of the science related to COVID, and stressed that the recent surges of cases reflect the period two weeks prior, outside the window of the general election called by the FNM.

Mr Mitchell accused the former Health Minister of doing nothing to fix the “collapse” of the nation’s healthcare system, adding that “people died because of the FNM’s negligence.” “Compare that to Dr Michael Darville today, who four weeks into the job, has fixed the supply chain of vaccines, is working at restoring competent management in healthcare and is getting the medicines to help ease the crisis.”

Mr Mitchell said all of this would not be an issue if the former minister had done his job.

“He failed us and as Darth Vader said in the movie, Renward Wells you have failed us for the last time,” Mr Mitchell said. “So please sit down and shut up.”

Mr Wells also suggested the PLP’s disparagements of the Minnis administration before the general election have forced them to follow through on certain decisions to save face, despite those decisions not being in the best interest of the public.