New Minister of Health John Boyce has given the assurance that the Barbados Ambulance Service would have proper facilities within the next three months.
“I cannot believe that the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) between all those years of plenty could find no time, no energy, no interest whatsoever to provide an adequately designed and outfitted Ambulance Service for this country. We will correct this situation in the very next three months or so,” he stated, adding that this would include both the facilities and the equipment.
“This must be a priority if we are going to begin to meet the needs of the public of Barbados,” he continued.Speaking in Parliament yesterday as the debate on the Appropriations Bill 2013 continued, the Christ Church South MP noted that his government was ensuring that it provided decent facilities for public servants, claiming that these individuals had been forgotten by the former BLP administration.
“They failed with the Government Electrical Engineering Depart-ment, we got them out. They failed with the Attorney General’s Chambers. We’ve got them properly housed now. They failed with almost every government department and we have had to correct this situation.
Speaking on the rise of non-communicable diseases, he said these have become a “real feature” in health care, and stressed that as the treatment paradigm was rolled out, it was critical to know what the real cost was in terms of health care, even if patients were not being charged.
“We have got to understand that as we extend the range of interventions, we must be able to count the cost,” Boyce stated.
Commenting that government was looking to construct a new hospital, he nevertheless stressed that the “health care that we provide today must be adequate.” (JMB)
