The Healthcare Debate

HEALTHCARE is too expensive – not in terms of dollars and cents only but in lives that could be lost – to play politics with.

That may be the only thing in the current healthcare debate now raging in the country that everyone may agree on. Everything else seems to be colour-coded. Hence the problem with what is happening in the country today.

Logical sounding statements made by reputable persons on the St. Jude Hospital Reconstruction Project are dismissed by either one or the other colour-coded groups in the country simply because those statements are unsupportive of their respective views.

Is it the Labour Party Government that is responsible for the state of affairs the hospital is presently at or is it the Flambeau Government that is responsible?

Either side could present statements blaming each other as being responsible for the debacle today. The debate has so much politics attached to it that relevant questions, expert advice and statements made amidst the commotion are not being heard, or given the time of day.

This melee produces only confusion and helps in distorting the facts surrounding the project. Therefore it is no wonder that persons say the most insane things about the project, and feeding this insanity are the politicians.

Sadly, the madness is accelerating. Just imagine three reports have already been commissioned on the project. There is the Shanta King Report (2016), The Technical Audit (Report) (2017) and the soon to be completed Financial Audit (Report) (2018). While the reports may contain the bare facts about the project, the fact that government has refused to release to the public the first two reports helps in the confusion that exists today about the project.

It seems that too many St. Lucians failed to realize that the fiery death of the hospital on 9 September, 2009 presented them with a golden opportunity to build a state of the art, accredited facility, something we never had before and one that could have been built in five years or less.

Moreover we had the start-up money to do it. The drive to finance the hospital’s reconstruction started under the Flambeau Government headed at the time by Stephenson King. The Government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) gave a grant of EC$22,500,034.00 for infrastructure and radiological equipment. The Australia Government gave a grant of EC$1,092,590.00 while the Government of Mexico gave a grant of EC$7,144,941.24.

The Government of Germany chipped in with a grant of EC$2,087,195.07, the Government of Israel handed over EC$40,317.70 followed by the Republic of India also giving a grant of EC$672,045.00. The Hess Corporation donated medical equipment valued at EC$2,716,900.00. The Government of the United States of America also donated medical equipment amounting to the same value as that of the Hess Corporation.

Then there was the cash donations locally and from overseas individuals and organizations, which amounted to EC$2,061,739.00. All in all total contributions through grants and donations amounted to a whopping EC$41,032,662.01. All this is contained in the Shanta King Report that the government has yet to discredit.

However Nancy Charles of the United Workers Party said yesterday on the radio talk show “News Spin’ that $100 million was collected in donations.

Were those donations and grants collected under the administrations of Stephenson King and the Kenny Anthony administration or under one administration?

It appears that there was money enough to start the construction of the state of the art, accredited hospital for the south of the island with a reasonable bed count that both administrations wanted. The government had funding and equipment all ready to start something wonderful within the healthcare landscape of the country.

The important question is: What went wrong? The answer: The politicians.

In April 2010, under Stephenson King, the government took a policy decision to develop a two pronged approach to the implementation of the reconstruction project. There was to be a short term and medium term solution. The short term solution was to be the re-construction of the surgical wing on the old site and the renovation of other buildings so as to move operations from the George Odlum Stadium. The medium term solution was the construction of a new 90 bed health care facility at a new site. Work on those two solutions started on 9 September, 2010 with a ground breaking ceremony. It must be noted that King, in August 2011 revised his policy direction.

King would not have started construction if funding was not in place. Two questions arise from this: How much money was spent by the Stephenson King administration on the reconstruction project before it demitted office in November 2011? And was that amount inclusive of the EC$118 million the Technical Audit noted had been spent on the incomplete hospital.

The Labour Party administration took control of the hospital reconstruction in November 2011 and according to Dr. Anthony at the time the government immediately ran into problems with the project. The main problem he said was finding money to complete the project as the $35 million allocated by King in the budget back then was not enough to complete the hospital.

Dr. Anthony also said the reconstruction project encountered several delays. What caused these delays that dragged the process throughout the five years of his administration? The causes of the delays were never itemized by the Labour administration.

The big question is whether the incomplete structure at St. Jude corresponds to the amount of money said to have been spent by the Shanta King Report or the Technical Audit? The Flambeaus say the two do not correspond. The Labourites say the two do correspond. One of them must account.