The Bahamas Dental Association (BDA) is demanding that the government conduct a complete review of its “weak” National Health Insurance (NHI) proposal.
BDA said it has “deliberately” kept its mouth shut on this government initiative. But a 25-page press release damned the proposed NHI plan and highlighted the scheme’s “many weaknesses, limitations and unanswered questions that must be addressed before it could be implemented with any hope of being sustainable or successful.”
“We question the government’s haste in trying to implement a plan fraught with weaknesses, limitations and unanswered questions, before properly apprising the public of what, if any, real changes will accrue other than an additional tax to their income,” the release said.
“The BDA is concerned that the proposed NHI plan will result in a significantly increased health care budget with little or no tangible improvement in the quality of health care in The Bahamas.”
The government has promised to bring into effect the $235 million NHI programme that will seek to become the major source for financing health care in The Bahamas and will significantly reduce hardship, “resulting from loss of dignity, property and even life, suffered by many individuals and their families who are not able to afford much needed healthcare.”
The BDA’s release also questioned the government’s failure to characterise NHI as a tax, when in actuality, it said, NHI will either decrease the real wages of the average Bahamian or increase the costs of goods and services to Bahamians and tourists alike, raising the already high costs of living and doing business in The Bahamas. The release also highlighted many gaps in the proposed plan, including the miscalculation of the costs for implementing the proposed NHI, the lack of information technology and health care management software, the “unreliability” of the claim that immigrants will be forced to pay for health care services under NHI, the long lines and associated delays in accessing health services among other pressing issues.
“As many more Bahamians seek health care within our public health system, particularly Princess Margaret Hospital, the number of cases of patients having to wait in hospital corridors, in wheelchairs and on gurneys, due to a woeful lack of hospital rooms, beds or surgical theatres will only increase,” the hard hitting statement said. “At the extreme, the incidence of persons dying because they can wait no longer will also rise.”
The release also scorned the government’s decision to duplicate a scheme that has been implemented in many developed countries, “As The Bahamas does not have the tax base or national budget to absorb the kind of skyrocketing national health deficits, the wisdom of government in trying to duplicate such a system must be questioned.”
“BDA does not believe in a one-size-fits-all approach for the payment of NHI contributions,” the release concluded. “It is our hope that government would advance a revised plan, giving greater consideration to its scope and form, so that the many questions and concerns do not go unchecked, resulting in a failed national experiment, with far reaching negative consequences.”
By: IANTHIA SMITH, The Nassau Guardian
