The Tribune

By Annelia Nixon

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

A doctor’s union president yesterday called for new taxation to be imposed on fast food restaurants to help cover the public healthcare system’s forecast $24m financing deficit while also slamming the fees being levied on National Health Insurance (NHI) providers.

Dr Charelle Lockhart, the Consultant Physicians Staff Association (CPSA) president, told Tribune Business that fast-food restaurants must bear some responsibility for poor dietary and eating habits among Bahamians as she backed suggestions by Dr Michael Darville, minister of health and wellness, that adding a “nominal” 50 cent tax on every sugary drink sold could collectively generate “millions”.

“We also need to be taxing all of these fast food restaurants,” said Dr Lockhart, who heads the union representing more senior doctors at Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) and in the public healthcare system. “They should be taxed heavily because they are a big part of the problems that our society is facing right now.

“It's just a proliferation of fast food restaurants, and they need to get taxed, and people need to be taxed buying food from them because it is not healthy. It is unhealthy, and they need to put the taxes down on fresh fruit and vegetables and tax these fast food restaurants up the hilt.

“I like my fast food here and there, but people literally are eating fast food every day - every single day. I'm talking to parents with little children, and I'm asking the kids what they eat, and the first thing that comes out of their mouth [is] Bamboo Shack, Wendy's, McDonald's... They eat fast food five days a week,” she added.

“They're starting them off young, and that's wild to me. And so taxes on all of those things that are contributing to our society being obese with chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes, I am all for 100 percent.”

Speaking on NHI’s planned introduction of fees and charges for doctors to access electronic medical records, Dr Lockhart said the taxpayer-funded scheme in its present form is not financially sustainable.

“What they're doing with NHI right now, and taxing the providers and putting these fees on them, I think, is wrong,” she blasted. “That's my personal opinion. They signed up to a capitation programme, and the Government or the NHI Authority is now changing the rules of engagement, and that's one thing that I do not like across the board.

“Do not change the rules of engagement half-way through. That's going to get people very upset. And having the providers pay for what we told them was going to be a shortfall when they started this whole scheme is not nice.

“The way they went about it as usual is wrong. But we told them when they first consulted us on starting NHI many years ago, we told them this is not sustainable. The way you have it planned is not sustainable, and that's one of the reasons why I, personally, as a paediatrician, never signed on to NHI because I knew that it was not sustainable, and I knew that for paediatrics it would not work.”

As for the predicted $24m public healthcare financing deficit for 2026-2027, which was disclosed in the just-released National Health Strategy report, Dr Lockhart said she “saw the train coming for a long time”.

“I feel like we saw this coming,” the Association president said. “We saw the train coming for a long time. We've been saying, the providers have been saying this, for a very long time.

“So the fact that the people who are supposed to be supplying the money had their heads in the sand all this time also doesn't surprise me. The fact that we're at a deficit does not surprise me... Healthcare costs money, and we cannot have people coming to the public health care system and paying zero dollars and expecting, you know, A1 care. It just doesn't work that way.”

Dr Ian Kelly, of Nu-Life Health Centre, also said taxes on sugary drinks and other health vices, such as alcohol and tobacco consumption, can “help pay for what those things cost the community and the country in general”.

“That is something they have in England,” Dr Kelly said. “But I mean, it's not just sugary drinks. It should be on all sugar, and everything breaks down to sugar. Rice breaks down to sugar, and potatoes and bread and pasta and stuff like that. So it's these things that contribute to diabetes and hypertension, and probably increase the risk of cancers.

“The Government has to be a player in this. We actually can't prevent any disease. We can only treat diseases that the people bring on themselves. Diabetes and hypertension, and all these other things, are almost like self-induced. So it's like the Government has to play their part in educating people to how to stay healthy. And we come in where we help treat those people, and help reduce the mortality and morbidity rates.

“The purpose shouldn't be to reduce that $24m.. We should be putting taxes on those things to help pay for what those things cost the community and the country in general. So figure out, what does cigarette smoking cost us in the country in terms of illness? What does sugar and things that break down into sugar.. what do they cost the country in terms of hypertension, diabetes, etc, and tax accordingly.”