THE RAND MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

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viagra generic times;”>“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of a moral crisis maintained their neutrality.” (Dante)

 Today, the Rand Memorial Hospital is no better off than it was when I severely criticized the FNM government in February 2012, four years ago.  At the time, the criticism was directed at the lack of bed space and wasting the public’s monies for the purchasing of the old Freeport Inn Hotel for $2 million dollars.  The then government aggravated a bad situation by building a new accident and emergency section, and a new operating theatre.  They placed new wines in old skin.  When the construction was finished at the Rand Hospital it had two less beds for the people of Grand Bahama than before construction began.

The FNM MP’s new then that it was a foolhardy and ill conceived, but the MP’s lacked the courage to stand up for Grand Bahama.  The Island is the industrial capital of the country.  If for that reason alone, we need a proper health care facility.  The problem back then was bed space, and today it still remains, lacking the beds needed.  At that time, my concerns were in the public interest.  Today let me declare that I have a personal interest for a family member, and in the interest of full disclosure, I declare my personal interest.

Today, four years later, Dr. Michael Darville is the Minister responsible for Grand Bahama.  That should be a good thing.  The people of the Island should see and feel the full weight of his office from a public policy perspective, for the public good.  Secondly, because he is a medical doctor that has first- hand knowledge of the Island’s needs, and has intimate knowledge of what the Island faces on the health care front.  In the case of the Rand Hospital his ministry to date has demonstrated impotence or indifference to the plight of the hospital.

Four years into a five-year term in office, not one additional bed has been added to the hospital, that is a disgrace and inexcusable.   Ill health like death is the great equalizer if one lives long enough it will come to your door sooner or later whether you are rich or poor, black or white, insured or uninsured, a supporter of the PLP or FNM, ill health will come your way.  Self- preservation is nature’s first law, and common sense dictates that we deal with the issues of beds.

It is unacceptable to hold people in the accident and emergency section of the hospital for two or more days waiting for a bed, what seems to be common place at the Rand.  How could we as a people tolerate and accept this. 

On Tuesday the Public Hospitals Authority signed a $7 million dollar contract for the upgrade of digital diagnostic equipment that is good.  The message to the Minister, who must be in the stratosphere above these islands, after you would have diagnosed and operated on the person where will you put our loved ones to recover; in the hallways of the hospital, or maybe, back in the emergency section, or simply send them home to die from infection while recovering?  Add the beds please, that is just common sense.  Instead of vacillating and taking the people on intellectual flights of fancy on what is proposed that means nothing to the average person and rings hollow to the ordinary man.  Dr. Darville, in Longfellow’s psalm of life, it tells us that life is real, and life is earnest, and the people of Grand Bahama are not like dumb driven cattle, and as such, should not be treated that way.

What we see here is stalling.  My grandfather would call this horse fat and cow dead.  The first principle of the PLP lest we forget is people are more important than things.  We are the party that champions the cause of the least of these our brethren.  We are the party whose goal it is to wipe away every tear.  This is the reason we exist, these are our core principles which made the PLP strong.  Forgetting these principles will surely put you in political peril. 

Dr. Darville before you knock on the first door to ask for a vote consider the political landscape of Pineridge and Marco city, and of those who would have gone before you.  In the last three election cycles the people would have changed their MP’s every five years.  Theirs is a simple principle:  if you are not for me, I will not support you.  As you approach the final year of this five-year term, I entreat you to turn your attention to this demographic that have made the PLP who we are.  If they believe you have been faithful to the cause and have done your best, then all will be well with you.  If you as Minister achieve nothing else zero in on the Rand Memorial Hospital.  Let it be said because Dr. Michael Darville passed this way, the Rand Memorial Hospital is a much better place because he demonstrated that he care in a tangible way, and that people indeed, come first.  Dr. Darville did the best with the cards that he had to play.

The delivery of health care service is a moral issue.  How we as a people deal with the poor, youth, the aged, and indigents speaks to the humanity of our people, and by extension, us as Bahamians.  Anything less diminishes us as a country.  Let it not be said we turned a blind eye and shrank because we lack the courage to advocate for the right thing, and for the greater good for all our people.

Brian Seymour