Shadow health spokeswoman Louise Jackson has called for critics of the Medical Clinic to look at current realities and not the history as she responded to a statement made by Dr. George B. McPhee in yesterday’s Royal Gazette.

The full-page advert, paid for by the Government, reprints Dr McPhee’s letter, already published earlier, in which he said he’d opposed the clinic at its inception as “coloured patients would be herded into one location and would receive inferior medical care”.

Dr. McPhee said he was “amazed” at the opposition to its closure and that Premier Ewart Brown had shown courage and insight to do what should have been done many years ago by closing the clinic.

Yesterday Mrs Jackson said she had supported Dr. McPhee’s stance originally.

“This was a very heroic thing he did. It was justified in 1967. But this is 2007. That was 40 years ago. The whole concept has been changed.”

Mrs. Jackson said the revamped medical clinic offered state-of-the-art care in superb surroundings similar to a number of other neighbouring units at the hospital.

“They have the same professional, qualified doctors, they look exactly alike, the furniture is the same, the AC is the same.

“No one can say you get inferior care at the Medical Clinic.”

The clinic — formerly the Indigent Clinic — treats up to 1,500 patients at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital who cannot afford health insurance. However, Government says it is uneconomical to keep the facility open.

Explaining the closure Premier Dr. Ewart Brown said it would create “considerable savings” and that up to 30 doctors would be willing to treat patients at a cost of $5 each visit.

Patients’ suitability for financial help, or ‘indigent status’, will be determined by the Department of Financial Assistance.

But Mrs. Jackson said the medical clinic should not be penalised now for the bad days of the old indigent clinic as it used to be known.

“It’s like saying children at Berkeley in the brand new facilities in 2007 should not go there because when Berkeley started it was one room in a segregated school.”

Similarly it made no sense to take it out on the medical clinic patients who were all in favour of staying put and she challenged those against the facility to find one user who didn’t like it. Mrs. Jackson said the setup was also discrete but now people would have to go over to Financial Assistance for a means test to prove they should qualify for subsidised medical services which was both more bureaucratic and more public.

“Financial assistance is not easy — there are numerous forms to fill in.”