The Tribune

ON Monday, The Tribune was sent a statement from the Office of the National Chairman of the PLP – no less a person than Fred Mitchell, who seems to have suffered a serious loss of memory.

Mr Mitchell’s comment was a short critique on Prime Minister Dr Minnis’ national address delivered earlier that evening.

“The Prime Minister,” said Mr Mitchell, “did not address the critical state of our country’s healthcare system or his government’s plans for universal healthcare for Bahamians. Tonight there are no beds in the hospital to spare.”

Well, isn’t that interesting! No beds to spare! Doesn’t Mr Mitchell recall that one of the first acts of his government when it was returned to power in 2012 was to delay for almost two years the opening of the Critical Care Unit so that one of its units, intended for patients, could be converted to administrative offices? Just imagine administrative offices in the middle of a bloc designed for patients. With a shortage of nurses this was a bloc especially included for recovering patients, which would require fewer nurses to be on duty.

An intensive care unit is decided by the ratio of nurses to a patient. For the seriously critical 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. The intended “stepdown” is now the den for the hospital’s administrative staff. And, yet Mr Mitchell – six years later — with the FNM government only eight months in office having inherited so many financial problems from the Christie government – has the nerve to ask why?

The FNM became the government on May 10 last year. A few days later Dr Duane Sands had a report on his desk from the Financial Secretary, Ministry of Finance, outlining his ministry’s financial obligations. The Public Hospital’s Authority (PHA) needed more than $90 million — $90,460,845.84 to be exact — in total capital and recurrent funding to meet its obligations.

In a letter the retiring PHA managing director also reminded the Financial Secretary of his earlier “communication dated November 30, 2016 regarding Hurricane Matthew for claims totaling $920,733.70 of which $642,567.70 related to capital works, including roof repairs for the Princess Margaret Hospital and the Rand Memorial Hospital.

This matter is of major concern as we have yet to receive the required funding and we are days away from the commencement of the 2017 hurricane season.

Hence, I am again urging that the requested funds be provided, so that we may carry out repairs to our facilities to ensure that they are all in a state of readiness”, he wrote. Hurricane Matthew did much destruction in October 3, 2016 when the PLP was still the government, followed by Hurricane Irma in September, 2017 – by then the FNM had been the government for four months. However, the PLP had probably spent so heavily on consultants to come up with a pie-in-the sky plan for universal health care coverage for all Bahamians, that there were no funds to secure the damaged property. Even a prominent doctor who was a part of the planning for universal health care when asked how it was all going to be paid for, told one of our reporters that it was for him to figure it out.

“The approach of Hurricane Irma mandated that the incomplete roof repairs be fast-tracked to ensure the integrity of PMH. Funding challenges identified in May 2017 included needs for major repairs after Hurricane Matthew,” said Dr Sands. “It is unfortunate,” he added, “ that the health care system was placed in such a state of vulnerability by a series of governmental decisions for spending that were intemperate and at times even reckless.”

And so we would suggest that Mr Mitchell “sit small” because his party’s administration – certainly in health care – is hardly one of which to be proud.

Some time ago The Chicago Tribune did an investigation that revealed that “more than 100,000 deaths in the year 2000 were linked to infections that patients received in US hospitals.” This figure has been disputed, “but not the fact that deaths linked to hospital infections represent the fourth leading cause of mortality among Americans, behind heart disease, cancer and strokes”.

The Chicago Tribune reporter spent a year and a half investigating the story,“which is filled with stunning information. One finding: tens of thousands of lives could have been saved if doctors or nurses simply washed their hands.”

We shall return to this subject when we introduce our readers to the PMH’s laundry room where only one drier out of three are working and only two washing machines out of six are still operational.

The folding machine is inoperable and sheets are folded by hand in a room that would not be noted for its cleanliness. These are the sheets that go on patients’ beds at this country’s major hospital.

Yet the PLP administration neglected the essentials of basic health care to try to win votes by making Bahamians believe that if their government were returned to power, Bahamians would never have to plan cook-outs again to raise money for major operations.