Bermudians are not getting value for money when it comes to healthcare, according to Tawanna Wedderburn.

Addressing Hamilton Rotary’s weekly meeting, the chief executive of the Bermuda Health Council gave a presentation illustrating the Island’s annual health expenditure.

Seeking to explain the “health insurance puzzle”, Ms Wedderburn produced figures that outlined how the costs were distributed within health services, an effort to answer the questions, “What is that used for?” and “Where does it go?”

“We are not receiving value for money,” she said. “This is something the Bermuda Health Council will have to address in addition to our partners and stakeholders.”

Bermuda’s total yearly health expenditure is $693 million.

She compared the Island with Japan, where residents have the highest life expectancy, of close to 87 years, and are spending less than $3,500 per capita annually. While the United States marks the extreme at almost $8,500 per capita, “Bermuda is not in very good company”, she said.

Our life expectancy is just below 80 and we are spending a little less than $7,000 per capita.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average shows that 8.9 per cent of a country’s GDP is spent on health expenditure — in Bermuda we are just below the US, spending 12.7 per cent of our GDP on health, Ms Wedderburn showed.

It is imperative that we bring life expectancy up and the cost of healthcare down, she added, an outcome she believes is “achievable”, announcing that the BHC has a number of new initiatives in place.

She said they had investigated complaints and employed a strategy of publishing the names of “non-compliants” on their website.

“Of the employers that have been published on our website, 72 per cent have successfully reinstated their coverage, so we know that publication is working,” she said. “We have an obligation at the Health Council to ensure that those employed persons do actually have access to health insurance and the way we do that is through compliance.”

While she maintained that “excellent” care was available in Bermuda, we have to look at contributing factors to poor health and a lower life expectancy.

“Part of the perception people have is that we don’t have good local care, when indeed we do. We have some well-trained practitioners,” she said.

She said there was “no question of the connectedness between mental and physical health” and that the BHC was working towards regulating other professions within the health industry.

Ms Wedderburn told The Royal Gazette: “One of the primary reasons has to do with lifestyle choices.

“We have to acknowledge that we do not make some good lifestyle choices. Those lifestyle choices are primarily related to our exercise and our diet.

“If we’re not making good lifestyle choices it invariably influences the degree to which we get sick and the degree to which we are able to manage that sickness.

“We are clearly seeing that if people are more stressed and if people have mental health issues then that obviously contributes as well to the extent to which they require care and whether or not they can access care.”

Ms Wedderburn also suggested that patients “shop around”. The prices set by healthcare professionals are not regulated and making important decisions means knowing how much it will cost, she said.