GOVERNMENT HAS COMMITTED to under-funding the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), even as it faces a new ultimatum from fed-up pharmaceutical suppliers.
Opposition Leader Mia Mottley said yesterday that after failing to receive more than $20 million they were promised by last November, these companies wrote QEH management last month and notified them that “with immediate effect” from last Sunday, they would be supplying the hospital under a new “50/50 cash arrangement”.
Mottley said this meant that the providers of drugs and other supplies were now requiring “all of the cash” due to them for new supplies, and “an equivalent amount on the old debt”.
Speaking during the Estimates Debate in the House of Assembly, Mottley said even though it was fully aware of this and other challenges facing the QEH, Government’s 2015/2016 budget had allocated $150 million to the hospital, $30 million short of what it “genuinely needs”. (SC)
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