MINISTER OF HEALTH Donville Inniss may have meant well but the newly introduced policy in the Barbados Drug Service (BDS) is causing an ill-wind to blow across the country.
That’s the assessment of former Leader of the Opposition Mia Mottley who called on Government to “pause and reflect” on the new policy, noting that neither the immigration department nor the public pharmacies were ready to deal with the implications of the new cost-cutting measures.
She also said pensioners, legal non-nationals and the country as a whole were suffering as a consequence of the measures that came into effect last month.
On the one hand, she said, polyclinics were not adequately stocked to meet the demands of the public that in many patients needed particular drugs to deal with their illnesses, and so the reduction of options under the revised Drug Formulary put the health of many at risk – particularly those who were not in a position to pay the added dispnsary fee at the private pharmacies.
At the same time, she said, thousands of immigrants who were no longer allowed to access free medical care – even though they paid taxes and had monies deducted under the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) = were now more vulnerable to diseases that could have serious consequences on the whole country.
“You must understand that these same children go to school and mix with Barbadian children and to deny them access to the island’s free health care facilities is effectively putting our children and society as a whole at risk. God forbid we get a serious outbreak of a disease because these non-nationals are denied free access,” Mottley added.
“The Minister of Health may not have meant ill, and there are cost-cutting measures that may need to be taken across the board, but the Ministry of Health is not a republic and the immigration department another state. It is one Government and one arm of Government cannot blame another for its failings. It puts the entire country in a precarious position.”
Mottley said even before the free education system was introduced, Barbados was the envy of most developing countries for its health system, but it could no longer make that boast.
“We have immigrants who have made applications for up to five years, they pay taxes, NIS and are eligible to vote, but [through] no fault of their own, they cannot have acces to the health care system. Yet these same people mix with us and their children with Barbadian children.
“It is not good enough to blame the immigration department which is also part of Government — not when it poses a potential risk to the health of the country as a whole. Government has to pause and reflect on this new policy,” Mottley told the SUNDAY SUN in an exclusive interview.
She called on Government to set up a bipartisan committee to deal with issues of urgent national attention.
“When it comes to the drug service, it may not only be an issue of health but one of life,” she said, noting that she had received several complaints from pensioners who had been to polyclinics and were unable to get the usual drugs prescibed by their doctors.
“Nor were the new drugs available,” Mottley added. (CG)
