Memorial Hospital. Bermudians want their hospital to be ready, open, and functioning at full-tilt if they happen to need it in a hurry but they want to go elsewhere and shun the King Edward if they have a little time and a choice.

Clearly, we can't have it both ways. Like many other organisations, the King Edward Hospital has financial constraints and has to be operated in a sensible way.

As a Country, we ask a good deal of the only general hospital and, in some ways, we give it a good deal. The King Edward has wonderful volunteer support and it has a good deal of cash support from both individuals and charities.

But we do not give it what it needs, the regular business to keep it flourishing.

The result is that when the King Edward makes a simple business decision to close beds which are not in use and then has a bit of a rush, Bermudians complain about closed beds. However, given a little time, they were planning to use beds in Boston or Toronto or wherever.

When we face 20 percent increases in health insurance premiums, we are paying for all those people who run up health costs in Bermuda by going overseas unnecessarily. Health charges are generally higher overseas than they are in Bermuda, therefore we have to pay insurance to meet overseas costs.

Bermudians are, however, due an explanation of why their policies pay overseas costs up to local charges only but still premiums increase to meet overseas costs.

It is always difficult to discuss health care because it is personal to each individual. Bermuda's problem with costs does not arise because of illnesses which require treatment abroad but because Bermudians rush abroad when the King Edward would be perfectly capable of dealing well with the problem. There is also a tendency to go abroad to well-known clinics for medical check-ups which can be carried out just as effectively at home. One Boston area clinic even has a special check-in desk for Bermudians.

People will tell you that they go abroad because of all the "terrible stories'' they hear about the King Edward. That may be so, but the truth is that there are no more "terrible stories'' about the King Edward than there are about any other good, small general hospital. The stories simply spread more widely and more quickly in Bermuda, getting changed and exaggerated along the way. We do not think the King Edward makes any more mistakes than any other hospital nor do we think general treatment is any better overseas. We do think it is a good deal more comfortable to be treated at home.

The important thing is that people's health should not be jeopardised. There has been no indication that closing beds has caused a health problem. The "alarm'' and the complaining seem to have been caused because some adults had to be housed temporarily in the children's ward and in the emergency department.

What really should concern us has been addressed by the Minister of Health, the Hon. Quinton Edness. "There has been a full complement of nursing staff, with available medical back-up including doctors. Health care has not been jeopardised in any way.''