Government has allocated approximately three-quarters of a billion dollars to healthcare, and half a billion dollars to the hospital alone in the past five years, an MP has claimed.

However, with the PLP's sixth Budget approaching, Shadow Health Minister Michael Dunkley wants to know: where exactly has all that money has gone?

“For that amount of money one would expect more,” he told The Royal Gazette last week. “As we head into the Budget we don't want to forget the real issues.

“Where'd the money go? Show me some positive progress out of that. If not for the private sector and many of their initiatives... you'd be hard pressed to find any glowing points to pin up on the noticeboard.”

The PLP came to power in 1998, he said, after the completion of the Arthur Andersen review at the hospital. “There were decisions about the way forward.

“Six years on, the community is very concerned.”

The infrastructure of the hospital is “literally falling apart”, he said. “Somebody's been asleep at the wheel.”

Some of the workers, such as those in the laundry, work in such conditions that Mr. Dunkley was embarrassed on their behalf. Calling the morgue “disgusting”, he said it was “not fit to be used”, and certainly not a place to send your loved ones to.

The Intensive Care Unit is still in cramped quarters while renovations are finished, while the Continuing Care Unit, where seniors and long-term patients are treated, “is an embarrassment.”

“The list goes on and on,” he said.

Bermuda Hospitals Board (BHB) chairman Jonathan Brewin said at a recent Hamilton Rotary luncheon that hospital facilities face a major overhaul over the next ten years as part of a widespread review.

Hospital facilities have been in constant use for almost 45 years, he said, and the hospital building was built in 1965 for the healthcare services of that time.

“We're planning not just from year to year... but for the next ten years,” he said.

However, Mr. Dunkley was concerned about what he perceived as a lack of year-to-year planning at the hospital.

“We have to be concerned because a half billion dollars is a lot of money... Sadly, there has been an acute lack of planning (at the hospital),” he said. “Now they are at a loss. We are really, really failing.”

Something needs to be done, “and it can't just be lip service,” he said. A capital campaign is being started to lobby the private sector for funds for the hospital, he said - however it was five years too late. “Now they are paying the piper for their tardiness.”

And, after Government “alienated” private investors the Council Partners Charitable Trust, he felt they had work to do to regain trust from the private sector.

The National Drug Commission (NDC) was formerly funded by the CPCT. However the CPCT disbanded in November after raising more than $9 million for the Island's drugs agencies over the last decade.

Then-chairman Gary Madeiros explained the decision was made because the agency could not justify employing staff and renting an office when it was then only funding the youth awareness group PRIDE. He denied clashes with other drugs agencies, such as the NDC, led to its downfall.

However with the ongoing dispute between the NDC, then-Health Minister Nelson Bascome, and the CPCT making headlines in the early part of last year, Mr. Dunkley said Government “basically alienated” that private funding.

“Government caused the implosion of the NDC... they chased away that private funding arm. That's a shortfall from private funding of a million dollars a year - a significant amount of money.”

Instead of coming from the private sector, the NDC has already gone public saying they will be asking for more money in this Budget from Government - and the taxpayer.

“How anyone in their right mind is going to give money when they can't show it's being spent in the right way is beyond me.” With that in mind, Mr. Dunkley was at a loss to understand how Government expected private investors to step in for the hospital's capital campaign. “They will have to get rid of that perception for this campaign to be successful.

“You can't upset and alienate people and expect them to come back with more money,” he said.

When questioned about a recent survey commissioned by the BHB which showed that 64 percent of those surveyed found healthcare in Bermuda to be either “excellent or good”, Mr. Dunkley replied: “Sixty-four percent is not a number that brings any confidence. With only one hospital on the Island, that number should have been way higher... Bermudians need to be able to go to bed at night and know, if something happens to them, they will be taken care of.”

He said he had been unable to see the full survey conducted by the BHB yet. The BHB has, through PR firm Troncossi Public Relations, declined to release the full survey to the media until a later date.

The now-infamous $450,000 Kurron review of the hospital is also yet to be fully released, he said.

Government had said when the review was complete it would be tabled in the House of Assembly. However: “It hasn't been tabled... It was all very secretive.”

Though some points of the Kurron review were listed by Health Minister Patrice Minors in the House, Mr. Dunkley said: “They weren't anything we didn't already know.”

Though he appreciated the BHB, and particularly chairman Jonathan Brewin's efforts to keep the public informed, Mr. Dunkley also questioned the money spent in BHB's hiring of Troncossi.

“I would rather spend my money right in the hospital than on a fancy PR firm,” he said.

Mr. Dunkley was also concerned about healthcare outside the hospitals.

For example, he said: “Government has promised to form a Health Council for many years.”

The Health Council would take healthcare issues out of the hands of bureaucracy and Government, and into the hands of the experts - the healthcare professionals, he said.

“Practical solutions will be formed between the people who are involved. They can proactively take steps when they're needed, and act quickly and prudently.

“We (the Opposition) support it,”he added.

“Let's move forward on it.”