The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

The debate on national health insurance has most certainly polarised the Bahamian population. Whether we can afford this, whether we can afford not to do this. The arguments on both sides seem to forget one thing: the Bahamian government is asking to take over the responsibility for providing for our healthcare.

I think one thing we all can agree on is that governments are wasteful, inefficient and every other word you can use to describe poor management. They are also not responsive, call a government ministry and see how far you get when you have a complaint about something that hasn’t been done properly. So why would a sane individual ever want a government in charge of anything as important as healthcare?

This government cannot run Princess Margaret Hospital efficiently, it cannot run the Rand Memorial Hospital efficiently and it certainly cannot run the primary care clinics that are scattered on our islands. If you do not agree with me about how they run the hospitals and clinics, please go visit one for yourself.

We need to face the facts, relying upon the government to provide healthcare is not the wisest choice to make. We can all agree that healthcare in the Bahamas needs to be rethought, to include the least amongst us. And I think the debate on national healthcare has started us down a road that we should not be going down. We need to solve our problems, but the solution that the PLP government is presenting is not a real long-term fix to the problem because it has its own long-term problems, namely ever increasing costs and strains on the national budget.

Come on people on both sides open your eyes and realise that handing this or any government control of your healthcare is not a wise decision!

WAKE UP

Nassau,

March 14, 2015.