The Tribune

LIKE any Bahamian, I bristle when someone calls The Bahamas “a Third World country.”

How dare you insult us? The Bahamas has a high standard of living, high speed internet. We were the first country in the world to have a Central Bank-backed digital currency. We lead the region in tourism and are home to some of the best doctors in the world. Our capital city is home to a world-class international airport and cruise port.

We’re a peaceful, democratic nation with so much to be proud of – and we’re still in our infancy. Just a babe of barely more than 50 years old, compared to countries in Europe with centuries of history.

But even as I emotionally revolt, cringe, and say all that to defend the nation whose passport I proudly whip out when travelling, a small voice inside nudges me.

Remember the fires last week in Exuma and Abaco -- the ones that burned out of control because there were no available fire trucks and fire hydrants weren’t functioning?

How about the schools that are forced to close because there is no running water and the toilets don’t work?

How about the ongoing conditions at Princess Margaret Hospital, where sources say it has only gotten worse since 2023 when Bahamas Nurses Union President Amancha Williams said conditions were so bad the facility was “run right down to the ground.” Yes, the same hospital where just the other day this newspaper ran a front-page story about a woman who found her mother dead in the facility. Where were the nurses or aides or anyone else? Instead, they left it to a family member to discover the cold body lying in the ward not far from a nurse’s station.

Years of shortages, staff issues, filth, and poor conditions--despite doctors who try hard--have made the public facility an institution of last resort, yet the only one most of the population can afford. 

Power failures, potholes, PMH

Every time I begin to defend the country I want to believe in my heart is “First World,” I am reminded of the gaps. Including the Family Islands, where power failures on a regular basis leave citizens in the dark for days at a time and make backup generators, once a luxury for the wealthy, a near necessity for all.

Just as I am driving along thinking of all the remarkable achievements of this amazing nation, I hit a pothole. Then another. And then I try to avoid yet another.

I pass a stretch of road where I can’t find a single block without trash along the curb or the side.

As I pass Goodman’s Bay and see all the folks jogging, cycling, or walking, I think about the unhealthiness of the bulk of our population. It impacts our productivity and economy, not to mention our social well-being. We are the fifth most obese nation in the world, just behind Tonga, Nauru, Tuvalu, and Samoa, with nearly half our population qualifying for obesity status.

What a record! Compare our 47.5 percent obese population to Thailand, Denmark, Singapore, Zimbabwe, all at 15 percent or less. And Vietnam and Ethiopia at almost negligible counts. 

NHI underfunding or population overeating

Our problem is not just the underfunding of our National Health Insurance plan. The problem is overeating and under caring for self by the bulk of our population. Eating too much processed or fast food, not getting enough exercise.

That’s not to say, however, that NHI underfunding is not a serious issue. It is for all doctors’ offices that accept NHI patients and wait months for reimbursement. If Dr. Duane Sands’ calculations are correct--and there’s no reason to suspect otherwise--the government’s NHI debt is $24 million. It sounds like a lot, but pales in comparison to the $60 million earmarked for roadworks and an annual budget of more than $3 billion.

In measuring First World and Third World countries, the health and well-being of a nation is as much an indicator of its status as its infrastructure. Our rates of hypertension, heart disease, and cancer exceed regional and global rates. Our social services safety net has more holes than we want to admit. And our educational system is not equipped for the growing number of young children with special needs--especially those on the autism spectrum--that now count in the thousands and whose families are struggling to find the right balance.

Yet on a beautiful day, there is no place on earth I’d rather be.

On that beautiful day--with the sun on our face and the balmy breeze at our back, with the view of the Lucayan Sea or the sound of waves stroking the Montagu Bay shoreline--we are transfixed. The wonders outweigh the woes, and we are like a tourist again in our own country. We could not care less what “World” the world says we’re in: we’re in a world of our own.

Extreme contrasts

Many of us have said it in a dozen different ways: this crazy, gorgeous, sad, wonderful nation we call home is a world of extreme contrasts. Megaresorts and mega-poverty. Exclusive enclaves of estates, one after another worthy of Architectural Digest covers, and just a few miles away, high density streets with hovels, peeling paint, dirt yards, and flea-bitten dogs living on scraps and finding shade under abandoned vehicles. 

Why a title at all

The Bahamas is, in some ways, just like all of us. The difference is that while most of us stand on two legs, The Bahamas has one foot in the First World and another stuck in the Third World for now.

All of which raises the question: what difference does it make? What if we abandoned the notion of First and Third World countries? Would it make any difference to our lives, our standing, our ability to function?

The concept of First, Second and Third World nations may be past its prime. Those categories were artificial constructs that arose during the Cold War era of the 70s, when it was convenient to label countries based on such simplistic measures: First World meant democracy, free, high standard of living, strong infrastructure, etc. like the United States; Second World status was attributed to Communist nations or states like the USSR and Cuba; and Third World was reserved for most of the new states of Africa and many poor countries in the Caribbean and other places.

It was almost like the good guys and bad guys of an old western movie. You knew who the good guys were if they were in the First World. You could count on them if you were a country that needed a hand.

But life is not as simple or easy to define as it was half a century ago. The same nation that may fail in roadworks may have an enviable environmental record. The country that lacks sophistication in the orange economy may be a leader in solar power or the health of its people.

Which one is the ‘preferred’ partner?

This is just a personal observation, but I see no benefit in maintaining a tradition that assigned rankings to nations when the conditions that gave rise to that system no longer prevail.

And I don’t think The Bahamas stands alone when it comes to a foot in two worlds.

But we just might be the most beautiful of all those models. And who cares what world they assign us to, so long as we know that the decisions we are making, the funds we budget, and the laws we enforce, pave the way for a better life ahead.