Nurses at a Government-funded clinic earmarked for closure are calling for a public debate over the future of healthcare for the poor in Bermuda.

Their plea comes as support grows for Dr. Catherine Wakely, who resigned from her position at the Medical Clinic shortly after The Royal Gazette published her letter in support of the centre.

It is understood Dr. Wakely was asked to relinquish her duties by Bermuda Hospitals Board the day after her letter appeared in this newspaper.

When contacted at home last night Dr. Wakely said: “I very much welcome the debate on how best to provide healthcare for the poor of Bermuda.

“When I initially wrote a letter to The Royal Gazette, all I was asking for was open debate on the subject.”

Nurses say the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital facility, formerly known as the Indigent Clinic, provides a vital service to seniors, homeless people and the mentally ill.

They fear without it many patients will have nowhere to turn.

They refute Premier Ewart Brown’s assertion that its patients suffer a lack of dignity and would be better off being allocated to individual GPs across the Island.

Yesterday, Maxine Herbert-Watson, the Bermuda Public Services Union (BPSU) representative for nurses at the clinic, said staff were “extremely worried” about what would happen to patients.

Mrs. Herbert-Watson said: “I have spoken to the nurses who work there every day. They are very, very concerned.

“The patients are slowly becoming aware of what will happen. They think this is not true, it’s a joke that’s going to go away.

“The nurses came to me and asked what we were going to do to assist in getting this matter out to the community.

“They felt that if the community knew what was going on, they wouldn’t stand for it.”

Golinda Fox, who worked as a nurse at the clinic for 14 years until 2005, spelled out why she feels the Medical Clinic is such a vital service.

Mrs. Fox, also a BPSU official, said: “In the clinic, those doctors choose to be there. Their time is the patients’ time. As long as the patient is talking, you are listening. If they have to go and see GPs, how much time are they really going to give these people?”

Mrs. Fox said she visited Health Minister Nelson Bascome shortly after discovering the Medical Centre was to close.

“I was concerned,” she said. “My opening statement to him was that I don’t have any vested interest to protect. My interest is the care of patients of the clinic because I worked with them.

“They changed the name Indigent Clinic to the Medical Clinic and the shame was gone from then. We were a new facility.

“The patients felt like patients. They didn’t feel indignity, they felt like clients of the hospital. We treated them with respect and dignity.

“A lot of those people don’t have a voice. We at the clinic were their advocates. That’s why we want to do what is right for them now.”

Mrs. Fox echoed Dr. Wakely’s call for the Government to set up a task force to assess the need for the service.

“The Medical Clinic should remain in existence to serve those who require the services offered,”she said.

“I ask the Premier, through the Minister of Health, to engage a task force with representation of the clinic clientele, doctors, nurses, health insurance and financial services to review the impending closure of the clinic before this is effected.

“The task force can look at all these issues and see what we currently have and see how we can address the patients’ needs. It’s about looking for excellent quality care. The patient is the stakeholder in all of this.”

Dr. Wakely’s letter, which described the centre as an “excellent” resource providing healthcare for people who badly need it appeared in this newspaper on Wednesday, February 7.

Referring to her resignation two days later, Mrs Herbert-Watson said: “Where’s the democracy?

“People should have a right to their opinion. They should not think there’s a negative consequence for their opinion.

“What kind of society do we live in, in 2007, when we still can’t have an opinion? When I read she had been asked to resign, I read her letter again. There’s nothing in her letter that I don’t agree with.”

Mrs. Fox said: “Her letter was well-written. If you can’t put an opinion in a letter to the editor, where else can you put your opinion? There’s nothing libellous about what she said. Where is the freedom of speech?

“If she was a union member, we would have won this case hand over fist. She didn’t violate any of our policies. We are sorry that we can’t represent her.

“The majority of care givers in hospital are guest workers. What kind of message does this send out to them?”

Government and the Bermuda Hospitals Board have declined to comment on Dr. Wakely’s resignation.

The Medical Centre deals with up to 50 patients a week.

It has been described as an essential service for those who cannot afford to seek treatment through the usual channels.

Transport, prescriptions and medical supplies are provided free, while patients have access to X-rays and MRI equipment.

In its absence, it is expected patients will need to visit independent surgeries across the Island for an initial appointment. If necessary, they will go to the hospital for further treatment.

Premier Ewart Brown announced in his Throne Speech last November that it would close because the dignity of its patients was being undermined.

Dr. Brown told this newspaper over the weekend: “A change in name does not restore dignity. A rose by any other name is still a rose.

“The Bermuda Government must be careful not to encourage a healthcare model based on financial status. Rather our model should be disease-based because that is the correct and most efficient thing to do.”

The closure was confirmed by Acting Health Minister Philip Perinchief on Friday.

In a press conference after the budget announcement, Mr. Perinchief said: “This clinic highlights that within our community there is a class of people who do not have equal access to healthcare.

“It also suggests that as a community, we have determined to keep them separate and apart from us.

“It just can’t be right for any member of this community to suffer the indignity of not being able to go to the physician of their choice. It seems that as long as they appear happy with this as their lot in life, our conscience is clear.

“We are taking care of them. It is the view of this Government that their place is with the rest of us. Therefore, the Medical Clinic at the hospital will close.”

On that point Dr. Wakely said last night: “The only reason we have been given for the sudden decision to close the clinic is ‘that it is undermining patient dignity’. We have been shown no evidence to suggest that patients believe the clinic to be undignified.

“There must surely be deeper reasons than this alone. Tell us what they are so that we can understand.”

A Government spokesman said a plan was currently being prepared for the transfer of care from the Medical Centre to the private sector.

Shadow Health Minister Louise Jackson, who has been campaigning to keep the Medical Clinic open, said yesterday: “The most undignified thing I can think of is having people who are poor and sick and living on the street and have no place to go any more if they can’t find a physician.

“In some of the poorest countries in the world there are facilities for people who aren’t able to to take of themselves. We have taken a massive step backwards.”