It is puzzling to understand why Minister of Health Donville Inniss would have chosen a weekly lunchtime lecture of the governing Democratic Labour Party (DLP) to surprise Barbadians with the news that the long talked about new Queen Elizabeth Hospital had been approved for construction at Kingsland, Christ Church.
Not surprisingly, in a year when it is now widely speculated that an election could take place any time in the last quarter of 2012 and well before Christmas, cynicism was quickly tagged to “election politicking”.
However, it was neither the occasion nor the venue at which the announcement was made that is at the core of growing national concern, as early reactions have shown. Rather, it is the location chosen – Kingsland in Christ Church – for Barbados’ premiere national medical institution, as made public for the first time by the Minister of Health at that DLP event.
Also quite surprising is the fact that such news should have come without the minister using the opportunity of the 2012 Budget Debate in this country’s highest national forum – Parliament.
It is as if Minister Inniss assured he would not be upstaged by colleagues, including Prime Minister Freundel Stuart himself and Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler, on public disclosure of the hospital project.
Inniss provided some useful details in proudly announcing the new project which, as he well knows, is expected to remain largely on the “drawing board” for the rest of the year amid rising speculations of a general election.
But no sooner had he disclosed Kingsland as the approved site for construction, based on factors like “demographics, housing stock and accessibility”, than surprise and even shock unfolded, with two former Ministers of Health giving the thumbs down to Kingsland as the location for the new institution to replace the 47-year-old QEH.
Both Sir Branford Taitt, a former DLP parliamentarian, and Dr Jerome Walcott, Minister of Health in the last Barbados Labour Party administration, were quick to separately decry as inappropriate and people-unfriendly the decision to build the new QEH at Kingsland.
As reported in yesterday’s Talk Back column, there was virtual unanimity against moving away from the very central and people-friendly St Michael location of Martindale’s Road to Kingsland.
It is to be hoped that the current decision-makers, or those to come, will take time to listen and learn why they should NOT rush to Kingsland to construct the much-needed new QEH.
