Almost three months after promising to continue publishing their meeting minutes, Linda Merritt, chair of the Bermuda Health Council, remains tight-lipped about the updates.

The BHeC had published minutes on their website for meetings between January and May 2007, when Dr. Michael Bradshaw served as chairman.

The practice was even highlighted as part of this paper's A Right to Know Campaign this year.

On January 28, Health Minister Nelson Bascome announced Dr. Bradshaw would step down and PLP general secretary Linda Merritt would be the new chairperson.

At the news conference, Mr. Bascome explained a change was needed for the council to move in a new direction and that he would be changing the membership to reflect healthcare stakeholders.

Ms Merritt, who has served on the council since 2005, at the time said she welcomed the appointment and confirmed she would continue the practice of publishing the minutes online.

However, now almost three months later the BHeC's website has still not added any new minutes since May 2007.

After two weeks of e-mailing both Ms Merritt and Anthony Richardson, the CEO of the BHeC, the response from Ms Merritt yesterday was: "No comment."

However, in an interview with this paper, as part of the Right to Know campaign, in early January, Mr. Richardson had said: "We decided that we operate on behalf of Bermuda, within which there are various stakeholders.

"If what we do is on behalf of the stakeholders, then there should not be an issue in terms of making that information available to the public.

"It's about accountability. There's a meeting that takes place. The board will hold you to get things done, but more importantly the public sees what you have said, and they will hold you to it. That's a huge advantage for sure. If people have access to minutes it forces the organisation to be more objective, more focused, if not more expert, in their decisions and their conclusions, because they know the public has access to those things.

"I don't think the average person has caught on to that yet. No one has called us and asked for our minutes. I need to make sure as the health council moves forward that they maintain the current policy."

But asked to explain his previous comments with the lack of minutes published online, Mr. Richardson yesterday said he had nothing further to add because Ms Merritt is the spokesperson.

He said: "The official spokesperson is the chair."

Concern about the lack of minutes is just another line of questioning about the practice of the BHeC.

In leaked notes, which former Health Minister Michael Scott called his "personal notes" a secret August meeting between Mr. Scott, Premier Ewart Brown and Bermuda Hospitals Board members or the "Saturday Group", questioned the need for the BHeC.

The former Minister wrote: "Premier: leave to Minister to work on leadership of the HeCo and PS of Health to work on changes to legislation to rehitch the statutory emphasis and authority of HeCo."

The Bermuda Hospitals Board insisted Mr. Scott's notes were grossly inaccurate, not an official record of the meeting and should be considered a reflection of the Minister's private notes and personal thoughts.

And in the January news conference, Mr. Bascome confirmed the BHeC would still be an important body in Bermuda health care and the legislated mandate would remain.

And in response to a question from this paper about changing the Council's legislated mandate, Mr. Bascome said: "Not at this time, no."