The Tribune

FREEPORT’S Dr Michael Darville, Shadow Minister of Health, has congratulated Health Minister Dr Duane Sands for his government’s plans to upgrade the Accident and Emergency and other sections of the Princess Margaret Hospital, noting that not only was it a “step in the right direction,” but that it was what the PLP had planned to do before it was voted out of office.

He said that the Christie government had recognised the dire state of affairs at the hospital and had worked on several options to have the facility enhanced, remodelled or repaired. However, the government was so busy that it had not got around to it before the May10 election. Obviously, none of them had toured the hospital to see for themselves the sub human conditions that patients and staff were enduring while they were chasing an unaffordable rainbow called national health insurance.

Again, all talk and no action. If the PLP had fully understood the subhuman state of the Princess Margaret Hospital why would they be concentrating their efforts on creating a national health scheme that they still don’t know how it is to be paid for or even how the extra patients are to be accommodated? It was like building an unaffordable top heavy structure on a crumbling foundation. But what did it matter as long as there was a possibility of an offer of something for nothing, which in the end might win votes and return them to government?

They must have known that the Hospital Authority’s recurrent expenditure shortfall was $16,426,155.99, which included the Princess Margaret Hospital’s outstanding financial commitment of $9,314,629.48, drugs and vaccines at $2,896,714.00, and medical and surgical supplies at $2,170,937.00, not to mention the added costs of Sandilands Rehabilitation and Grand Bahama Health Services. Despite these expenses that they could not meet, they led Bahamians to believe that they would be able to supply them with a private doctor of their choice and free medical care. When someone asked a doctor how government was going to pay for all of that, the sarcastic reply was: “That’s for you to figure out!.”

Well, fellow Bahamians, from where we sit it is unaffordable — another PLP bluff. It was a blessed miracle that Bahamians had their eyes opened in time – and voted the imposters out. Now we are left with a disaster in need of urgent repair and no funds to do so. As Dr Sands – who with his board, will have to pick up the pieces and start all over again— remarked: It is the “perfect storm” caused by years of “dumb and inappropriate decisions.” He was not sure when or how a solution to this “mess” would be found.

In this column yesterday, we promised to tell readers how the newly constructed Critical Care Unit, the main reason for which was to provide much needed extra beds, lost those beds to provide plush offices for the new PLP administration.

Before the May 2012 elections, the state-of-the-art critical care unit, which by then was 95 per cent complete, was expected to be opened in October– only five months away. Construction had started in November, 2011. Everything was running smoothly and on schedule.

Unlike our present situation — inherited from the PLP —the FNM had left enough funds to complete the building and purchase the equipment. As far as was known, the financing was to come from National Insurance funds. “At that time,” we were told, “no additional money was needed, except for the recruiting and training of staff.”

However, even staff training had started in readiness for an end of year opening. A 52-week critical care programme, accredited by the Royal College of Nurses in the United Kingdom, for the training of patient care assistants, anaesthetic assistants and emergency medical technicians was well underway.

The elections were held on May 7, 2012. By midnight that night, the Ingraham government was out and the Christie government was in. It was not long before the plans for the Princess Margaret Hospital’s Critical Care Block started to unravel.

The 52-week training course, on its completion, was discontinued and the Bahamian nurses, now trained, were released or terminated. A number of hospital beds remained closed, and none of the six operating theatres had opened. It was understood that they could not open for lack of staff.

All the political promises of first class critical care for indigent Bahamians is “just not so”, said one doctor. “It’s a tragedy, but it‘s just not so.” He doubted that the intensive care unit would be open to full capacity before the end of that year because of the PLP’s “lack of planning, the diversion of funds to other things, procurement problems, redesign of valuable space and making changes so that their people could get financial benefits.”

To have staffing and equipment in place did not seem to be a priority. Training of Bahamian nurses for critical care duties had stopped.

The new wing had been built as a critical care block – but it lacked the essential “step down unit,” which had been in the original plans. Apparently, someone in the new administration had the not-so-brilliant idea to turn what was to have been the “step down” unit into administrative offices. “Administrative offices in a critical care unit is unheard of,” said one doctor, concluding that whoever made the decision didn’t know what he was doing.

An intensive care unit is decided by the ratio of nurse to patient. For the seriously critical unit there would be two patients to one nurse, in the less critical — “the step down”— there could be three or four patients to one nurse.

With the removal of the “step down” instead of 20 available recovery beds there were only 10. There should be 10 beds in the extra critical area, and 10 in the less critical or “step down.” And so for the patients on the surgical ward there are no beds for the less critical cases — instead there is an administrative block.

“Before the new unit was built,” said one doctor, “we had nine beds for intensive care, now, we have increased that by only one – we now have 10 beds” – elimination of the “step down” unit meant 10 lost beds. However, of the 10 remaining several were still closed because of a shortage of staff.

Despite the fact that the Ingraham government had left all of the financing in place to complete the Critical Care unit, the PLP government started talking of a National Insurance tax. The unit opened more than two years late, but even then it was not fully functional.

And now that Dr Sands is desperate for the extra beds that were promised in 2012 –he can stop his search — that was the year that those beds were lost in the PLP’s sinkhole of stupidity.