Hospital bosses have threatened to sack staff who talk to the media after a series of damaging leaks.

Chiefs at the King Edward VII Memorial hospital fear the community would lose confidence after bad publicity including the forced resignation of engineer Neil Crane, emergency nurse shortages and staff discontent.

And at the weekend nurses had a sit-in after claiming one of their colleagues was insulted by a doctor.

Operating room nurses refused to help with non emergency surgery until the doctor apologised.

Shadow Health Minister Kim Young slammed the press gag as unethical.

She said: "I think it's known that the Chairman of the Hospitals Board Raymonde Dill is the only one to make public comment to the media but to sack somebody for saying something? People at the hospital have families and mortgages. I think it's another case of the PLP saying people can only disagree with them at their peril.

"It's a way of controlling what gets out to people but now we have a new Chief Executive I would hope the responsibility of speaking to the media would go to them. She has a professional background and is able to explain when things happen at the hospital. Sometimes when a person doesn't understand they can't put across what they mean.'' And Mrs. Young attacked Mr. Dill's recent claim that his critics attacked him because they were racist.

She said: "Bermuda has serious racial problems and it also has serious challenges in the health system...

"He's not the first black chairman of the hospital board. There have been various black chairmen including Sir. John Swan and Quinton Edness. This is quite a normal situation. He tells staff he's the only one that can talk to the press and then he complains he's always in the newspapers -- he can stop this by letting other people comment.''