BAHAMIAN NATIONAL PARTY HEALTH CARE POLICY.
The Bahamian National Party believes that proper health is the key to the all
around development of any country. Health care must thus be a major part of
National Development and must fit into the overall National economic model for the
country. Health care must not create a climate of dependency, but empowerment.
Health policy therefore must form part of an overall development policy, thus
reflecting the social and economic goals of government and the people. This way the
strategies will be mutually supportive.
The social partners such as the Churches, the Unions, the employers must all be
in full agreement with the overall policy and it must be compatible with the economic
policies at work elsewhere in the marketplace, otherwise they will be antagonistic
rather than supportive.
Health Care must be above all accessible to the community in need. Huge sums
spent on a Hospital in Nassau, without the means of rapid transfer to that hospital
for persons suffering family island emergencies is of no use to a Family Islander.
Better to have smaller Units capable of emergency care in the Islands themselves.
The Bahamian National Party considers it imperative that there should be no
major Family island without an equipped tertiary health facility capable of handling
the full range of home, industrial, and recreational emergency such as an automobile
accident. This is to serve the needs of our people, not for some plan to benefit other
persons to the detriment of the Native. Manpower, supplies, equipment and facilities
have to be allocated to serve our islands.
These essential health care units need only be what is termed 'cottage hospitals', units with an
emergency reception area, an operating theater and ten to fourteen beds in two wards, one male and
one female. Such unit can be operated by a team of two doctors and seven nurses. One doctor must be
a surgeon specialist or a person otherwise trained in emergency operations. The other doctor should be
a physician with capabilities in emergency anesthesia. Alternatively this can be a general physician if
one of the nurses is a nurse-anesthetist.
There are facilities and specialists available currently in New Providence fully capable of training
persons to fit these needs. In addition additional nurses and nurse assistants can be trained in the family
island community itself using the same doctors and nurses who will operate the cottage hospitals.
This is no experiment, it is a tried and tested method of health care in hundreds of thousands of rural
communities world wide, and the Nationalist has worked as the surgeon in several such arrangements!
By ensuring that we immediately embark on such a program of providing critical care in every major
island we will make major strides in correcting the current unequal quality of medical service available
in our islands. For too long has Nassau monopolised all the best of our doctors and in so doing has
made it necessary for many Bahamians who wish to remain in the islands to have no choice but to leave
and live in Nassau for medical reasons.
Further the cost of health care must be increasingly borne by government!
Philosophically the Bahamian National Party believes that there cannot be the
insistence on a straight line relationship between health care and payment for it at
the point of service. A healthy population capable of being productive pays for its
health care not only directly, but also through being able to pay countless other
indirect taxes from earnings largely made possible be being healthy.
The Bahamian National Party sees a similarity in that respect to investment in
the education of children. Educated workers are more productive workers.
Our working people will not be able to be fully productive unless they can be kept
healthy. Children will not be able to take full benefit of educational opportunities
unless they can be kept in good health.
The Bahamian National Party therefore has a Commonwealth wide health
strategy. We believe that there are several factors which must be taken into account:
1. At present there exists a wide disparity in the availability of health care and its
accessibility. I am speaking of the difference between family Island health care and
New Providence Health care.
2. We suffer from the colonial domination of looking outside our country for
solutions. This has recently reared its ugly head in the imposition on this country of a
Health Tax, an idea inspired by failed Socialist experiments in the UK and Canada,
first world countries who have wrestled with the catastrophic expense of these
systems. They are all seeking to privatize their health services as rapidly as possible.
The increasing debt burdens of these countries and their failure to balance their
budgets has been contribute to in a major way by the increasing and un-containable
cost of their health services.
The Nationalist as a specialist in Medical law has the direct opportunity of
examining this problem. A National Health Insurance system based on taxes from the
citizens, is a Utopian dream not attainable in practice, and one which will bankrupt a
country with a small taxable base of workers. It also suffers from the serious flaw of
note encouraging people to adopt healthy practices, instead to rely on others to pay
for their lack of health discipline.
3. In addition we live in a free enterprise economic system, where persons are
expected to bear some responsibility for their health choices, their eating habits and
their personal care.
4. The role of a properly developed local government system in adapting health
structures to the individual community needs.
These factors need to be taken into account in planning our Health strategy.
We have island communities where it is possible for local women and men to be
trained to assist with the delivery of health care to a local facility such as a Mini-
hospital. Yet to date little has been done in this regard.
We have island communities where benefactors have been willing to give
facilities and to assist with their upkeep, yet government has been slow to allow
these persons to contribute. This has been directed towards control of a people
rather than their empowerment.
The Bahamian National Party takes an entirely different approach to the Provision
of National Health, an approach which instead of deepening our people’s dependency
on central government with all the control baggage which this brings.
Our approach is along current Free enterprise economic models. These by
encouraging greater private sector involvement in the provision of services stimulate
rather than depress the economy. They provide employment rather than produce
unemployment.
If to this we add increasing involvement of the social partners, such as the
church, the unions in a more meaningful partnership with government in health care
provision, then we can produce a much better system.
We also envisage a greater role of local government in partnering to provide health
care service with other agencies.
We consider that all four of the main categories in which we divide health care
can benefit from this approach. These categories are:
A. Primary Health Care/Preventive Health Services in particular for Mothers and
Children with emphasis on Preventive Health Care Services.
B. Emergency Health Care/Industrial Health Services for all Islands including
emergency airlift of specialty doctors to patients stabilized in Family Island tertiary
centers, as well as airlift of selected patients to specialty facilities abroad as
indicated.
C. Elective Care to be provided by combination of Private Insurance/
Government/Social Partnership/ Local Government.
D. Health Care of the Indigent. Local Government/Central Government. Persons who
are selected by a means test as not possessing the funds or coverage to pay for
elective health care will be offered services at the instance of local and central
government.
We will also establish a fund for contributions by investors who wish to benefit
from the business environment of the Bahamas. They will be expected to assist in
defraying the cost to government of providing health care for Indigent Bahamians.
This will show that these investors have good corporate spirit!
E. Training of Health Personnel. Local and Central. The BNP will institute a program
of manpower training focusing on persons who are willing to serve in our Island
communities. By reason of the available health talent in the Bahamas the full range
of training is available locally to provide competent emergency service personnel.
The Bahamian National Party is of the view that there should be a deepening of
the existing Public Private sector participation in Health Care delivery which has seen
considerable investment in the provision of Health care by private individuals and
private groups. This has been largely funded with a view to insurance coverage of the
cost of services.
In cases where persons have not been able to pay for services through their
personal health insurance, the same service has been provided to government at
greatly discounted rates.
This has had the multiple benefits of:
a. Promoting the private sector in keeping with the free enterprise economic model,
b. Encouraging persons to be more responsible for their own health care,
c. Rendering large borrowing by government to provide facilities unnecessary,
d. Deepening the relationship between the public and medical groups jointly involved
in financing these ventures.
e. Increasing greatly the range of services of a specialist nature available locally.
The Bahamian National Party would seek to see the deepening of this model of
public/private partnership especially in New Providence. This would have the salutary
effect of freeing up funds, manpower and equipment to deal with much needed
Family Island health care problems, without causing further Borrowing with negative
impact on our Debt to GDP ratio.
Local Government Involvement.
The Bahamian National party will promote local government involvement in
Health Care delivery by working with Local Government Administration and
Community groups in the Planning of Health Care delivery, the establishment of
Health Care facilities capable of the full range of Emergency Care for Domestic,
Industrial, and recreational incidents.
This will be supported by a quick response team of emergency specialists
who can be flown in within minutes to reinforce the local health care team as needed
to provide state of the art emergency care. This way instead of the inevitable loss of
life associated with transport of the critical ill patient, the patient will be treated on
site, specialist being flown to the patient rather than vice versa.
Manpower for these Island emergency facilities will be trained both locally
and abroad, and will be supported by trained help from the community.
Funding will be shared between central government. Local government, local social
partners, and benefactors of the community.
You will note that we place great emphasis on Community involvement. We do
not wish to encourage a culture of dependency of our people rather to assist them in
helping themselves.
We will also promote inter sectional co ordination between education,
health, social service, finance, local government.
The Bahamian National Party Believes that Health for all can be established
within our current economic model, without distorting our social fabric, and without
taking on a greater debt burden.
By deepening existing linkages, more scope for innovative and appropriate
health system development is possible. We can and will attain this together.
This plan is in keeping with our current stage of economic development, it
will assist us in providing a balanced budget, it will deepen the development of our
important private sector, and it will promote self reliance of our people.
This plan can only be successfully carried out by a party such as ours,
dedicated to the vital interests of the Bahamian people.
BAHAMIANS OF GOOD STANDING WHO ACCEPT THE PLATFORM OF THE BNP AND
WISH TO FIGHT FOR BAHAMIAN INTERESTS AS CANDIDATES IN THE GENERAL
ELECTION UNDER THE BANNER OF THE BAHAMIAN NATIONAL PARTY, PERSONS
GENERALLY WHO WISH TO HELP US AS CAMPAIGN WORKERS OR TO BECOME
PARTY MEMBERS CAN CONTACT US AT ADMIN@BAHAMIANATIONALPARTY.COM OR
contact@bahamianationalist.com. YOU CAN ALSO WRITE TO US AT P.O. B OX EE16123