The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Beginning January 18, 2016 the government will initiate registration for their National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme through the National Insurance Board (NIB), who will determine eligibility for the programme.

The government also said that an NHI website and “other information sharing tools” will be unveiled this month to “ensure that Bahamians have the information they need to understand what NHI Bahamas is, the values of the new system, and how it will work”.

While on the surface this may look like progress to some, the fact is that this whole NHI business is a rotten mess and we, as the true stakeholders of the proposed legislation should be outraged at the entire process, regardless of our feelings on the idea of NHI. Considering that so far extremely little is known publicly of the details of the NHI legislation, which just passed Cabinet last month, we should be extremely concerned that such a programme is being forced upon us when they still make changes to it.

Also understand that much more than Cabinet’s approval is needed to make the NHI legislation actual law – it has to pass both the House of Assembly and Senate as well as being gazetted – then the red flags should be waving furiously in the minds of all thinking Bahamians. They continue to claim they are having meetings with stakeholders, yet those who will be most affected by the legislation – the general population – still have little to no clue of what it will cost among a myriad of other details.

This boils down to the serious lack of transparency and openness that is a hallmark of this government when it comes to making laws that affect the welfare of the citizens of the country. Despite speaking of good governance and promoting a “Stronger Bahamas”, they have shown very little to inspire trust in their competence to even run such an initiative which has mixed results the world over.

Abaconians have even less reason to trust when they have examples of a serious lack of care and concern for the health and wellbeing of residents here. For more than four weeks at the end of last year, nurses at the Marsh Harbour Government Clinic have staged a sit in because of the prevalence of mould in the building. Leading up to that time, many of the nurses have experienced upper respiratory infections.

The conditions at that clinic are reprehensible and even more disturbing given the fact that we are now 1,369 days in (three years, eight months, 30 days) waiting on the completion of the new mini-hospital in Central Abaco. About half of that time the building has been considered 90 per cent or more complete. The mini-hospital broke ground in April 2012 and has faced numerous stoppages while contractors and sub-contractors halted work waiting on delinquent payments from NIB.

If this government is derelict in its duty to maintain the current medical facility and has shown a complete lack of desire and ability to finish in a timely manner the new facility, how do we trust these same people to oversee such a significant and important legislation? How do they expect the people of the country to trust they will get it right when they claim that registration will begin when the legislation has yet to be passed and gazetted, much less made public?

What do we do when a government shows a complete and utter disregard and lack of concern for the basic right of the people to know what is proposed and how it will affect them?

S T ROBERTS

Abaco,

January 7, 2016.