More than five years after its controversial closure, the Medical Clinic is to open under the One Bermuda Alliance.Health Minister Patricia Gordon-Pamplin vowed to have the clinic — which served vulnerable patients such as the homeless, elderly and mentally ill — up and running again within six months.“That’s something that we had promised during the election campaign, and it’s something I’m hoping to deliver within a very short period of time,” the Minister told The Royal Gazette, adding that since the facility was shut down in 2007 under Premier Ewart Brown, “many people have had no healthcare”.The Government-funded centre provided healthcare at no charge.Its closure was announced in the Progressive Labour Party’s Throne Speech of 2006.Despite strident protests, Dr Brown maintained that the facility, formerly known as the Indigent Clinic, robbed patients of dignity, and that the same services could be provided elsewhere in the healthcare system.In its absence, however, more patients have resorted to the Emergency Room for treatment, at a time when Government is struggling to contain healthcare costs.Said Ms Gordon-Pamplin: “I think that the concept behind the initial closure was laudable, but the execution has been disappointing, inasmuch as I believe fervently that one’s healthcare should not be predicated on the amount of money one has in the bank account. That was the purpose behind the closure of the clinic — the idea that patients would be absorbed in the regular medical practices across the Island. It’s just not happened in the manner in which former Premier Brown hoped, and as a result we have a lot of people who’ve had zero healthcare since the closure of that clinic.”Because of the economic recession, she said: “We have far more uninsured people that we might have had at the time the clinic closed.”On the question of location and time-frame, the new Minister admitted: “We obviously still have to work out the logistics, so it’s a little difficult to say.”Saying she was happy to defer to the Bermuda Hospitals Board on the physical location of the Medical Clinic, she added: “I’m just not prepared to defer to anybody as to the fact that it will happen. It’s going to be there.”BHB chief executive officer Venetta Symonds confirmed that the Board had been instructed to plan for, and open, a Medical Clinic at King Edward VII Memorial.“We are in the process of establishing a working group to make this happen and this group will define scope, review options for its location and staffing so that it is a cost-effective and quality service,” she added.Following the Clinic’s closure, patients with mental and medical health issues were treated at a clinic in the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute, which remains in operation.Ms Symonds said: “What we have experienced over the last few years, especially as the economy has worsened, is an increasing number of people turning up at Emergency or the Lamb Foggo Urgent Care Clinic who have no insurance and no resources to pay for their care. They come to the hospital as it is our mission to provide care, irrespective of someone’s ability to pay up front.“This can result in people incurring costs they cannot afford, especially as accessing emergency care is much more costly than primary care, even for minor conditions. Additionally, it can mean they seek care later and do not seek help for chronic illnesses until they become more acute. Especially in these economically challenging times, a Medical Clinic can help improve care, support health and reduce the reliance on costly emergency services.”Former OBA health and seniors spokeswoman Louise Jackson, who pressed continually for the Clinic to be reinstated, last night said she was “happy and relieved” at the news.“High praise to the Minister of Health and Seniors, Patricia Gordon-Pamplin, for making this a high priority project,” Ms Jackson said. “There has been a long term need for this healthcare facility, and people have suffered for lack of healthcare.“Congratulations to the Minister and to the hundreds of Bermudians who marched and advocated for the needy hoping to have the Medical Clinic reopened.”