Health Minister Porsha Stubbs-Smith announced again in parliament that financial and clinical audits are underway for the secondary health care provider Interhealth Canada. Only two weeks ago the minister said the contract with IHC did not require a review of costs for a period of five years from start up or not until 2015 and was therefore not going forward.
The claim that audits are now underway came during the budget debate in the House of Assembly when the opposition leader Sharlene Cartwright Robinson reminded parliament that former chief financial officer Hugh McGarel Groves had called the deal an absolute scandal and financial mess.
Former chief minister and now shadow minister of finance Derek Taylor called for a committee of house members to delve into the costs, which are the largest budget item since the plan began in April 2010, only three years ago. Taylor said the plan’s implementation under the previous Progressive National Party (PNP) government was a “sweetheart deal”.
In the last three years, health care and the two small hospitals have cost islanders over $200 million. The funds diverted into health have caused all other departments to have shortfalls in funding, with education being the most seriously affected. School overcrowding and underfunding of the community college and scholarships are the most serious problems. It is believed that the cost of health care is one of the principal reasons for the massive tax increases already implemented and planned for the future.
An ongoing question is the apparent avoidance of the health issues by Premier Dr Rufus Ewing, who first assigned the ministry of health to Amanda Misick for five months and then switched it to Stubbs-Smith.
In the past Ewing admitted that it might be better not to “farm out” secondary care to the Canadian contractor.
