Barbados must find a place in the health care system for its well qualified young medical experts now being lost to other countries.
In an interview with the Daily Nation, former Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, professor Henry Fraser said there were “some sad losses in terms of the quality of brilliant people” who had completed post-graduate studies abroad but could not find a”post” at the Queen Elisabeth Hospital when they tried to return to the island.
And he regretted governments “are not sufficiently flexible or visionary to take advantage of many of the really bright people who can create opportunities, who can be recognised as leading a development that the country needs.”
Fraser said when government developed health care facilities in a specialised way, significant savings were realised, with patients not having to be sent abroad for the required care at exhorbitant costs.
He also expressed a vision for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the UWI Cave Hill’s medical faculty to become “the Mayo clinic of the Caribbean.”
“We have the potential, we have the location, we have the opportunity”, Fraser stated.
Not only could the hospital serve the entire Eastern Caribbean, Fraser believed, “the income generation from serving the rest of the Caribbean would assist us greatly.”
“While the cost of living index may have increased by ten per cent, the hospital budget has increased by only two-and-a-half per cent over 30 years,” said Fraser who has been associated with the hospital for over 40 years.
