concern because it can result in greater public confidence in Bermuda's only medical in-care facility. We think that many of the problems with the hospital's image result from its own public relations.

The hospital does get wide public support and this is amply evidenced by the Women's Hospitals Auxiliary and by the support the Care Campaign received when it was over-subscribed. The Bermudian public does not shun the King Edward as a facility. Where then is the problem? We think it rests in two areas. One is a failure by the hospital to communicate to the public exactly what the King Edward is designed to do and what it can do and what it does well. The other is a public tendency to knock things Bermudian and to complain about faults without mentioning the good things.

Every major public institution is bound to make a mistake from time to time.

In the case of any hospital, mistakes can be tragic. In the King Edward's case it was terribly unfortunate that it had two bad incidents which came close together. It takes time for any institution to recover from that. Non-medical institutions can take steps to explain their problems but a hospital is hampered by the need for patient confidentiality which often prevents the hospital from giving its side of a controversy in any detail. The public's natural interest in its health and the need for confidentiality leads to public gossip and widely circulated stories that often are not true. Thus our hospital is damaged without being able to reply. That being the case, the hospital should, we think, move to emphasise those things it can present to the public.

The basic King Edward Hospital record is good but all we hear are the negatives. The hospital should protect itself by raising its image as what it is, a good small general hospital. It needs to tell people what it can do well and what it thinks people should sensibly go abroad for. There are procedures small general hospitals could not do in any country in the world. When the King Edward cannot handle a problem, Bermuda is fortunate to have easy access to the major centres in the US and Canada.

The public operates on the stories it hears, many of them untrue or exaggerated and when one sad story is demonstrated to be true, there is a natural tendency to believe the rest. As a result, increasing numbers of people go overseas for treatment which they could get here more comfortably and, generally, less expensively. We also think that in many instances people would receive much better total care at the King Edward. People think major medical centres make no mistakes, but major medical centres are not free of problems. As an example, the publicity, controversy and lawsuits over the way a young woman called Libby Zion died at New York Hospital have raged on for years now in New York City.

There is a Bermuda problem because, aided by major medical insurance, Bermudians run unnecessarily to overseas hospitals and clinics when the King Edward would do just as well or better. Clearly some people must have overseas treatment and the King Edward is generally open to referrals. The problem is those who go overseas when the King Edward can do the job. That is debilitating to the King Edward and it is going to lead in the end to strictures on everyone's medical insurance.

We are concerned that the King Edward be supported so that it can get better.

We could find ourselves in the dreadful situation where Bermudians flew out so often that the King Edward could not grow.