GIVEN THE NEED to expand the existing hospital, I would like to suggest that consideration be given to reusing the former general hospital location. An imaginative approach ought to be undertaken in ensuring that it happens.
A 12-member committee of very successful, influential and wealthy Barbadians ought to be established along with, perhaps, two senior technocrats. It should be a pro bono effort with input from people such as Sir Kyffin Simpson, Derrick Smith, Paul Altman, Sir Trevor Carmichael, Ralph “Bizzy” Williams, Grenville Phillips Sr and others. They must not be answerable to any technocrat, neither must a politician be able to shelve or hold up their plans or get the rid of any of the board members willy-nilly. They should be appointed to serve four-year terms.
The area should be levelled and a team of five architects should be asked to come up with a design of five blocks which are linked. Dr Dexter James and his team drawn from BAMP, Barbados Dental Association, Barbados Nurses Association and others in the health care profession could make recommendations on the areas of specialty to be served for the next three decades.
Barbados could become a specialist health centre in areas ranging from fertility treatment to cosmetic surgery to bariatric surgery. Of course special emphasis should be placed on the treatment of cancer, diabetes, cardiac disease and chronic kidney disease.
This would allow for more patients from the Eastern Caribbean and Guyana as well as the United States to consider Barbados for primary health care. It would open greater opportunities for our health specialists and at the same time new avenues for the growing number of interns.
The rich would benefit and so would the poor. The QEH would almost be automatically be enhanced.
The Ministry of health would truly be able to be a regulator and the agency to set the tone to take health care forward. Let us use the talents of all those who make Barbados their home.
– GINA A. CLARKE
