Former Health Minister Quinton Edness has criticised the closure of the Medical Clinic as a “misplaced effort”.

The initiative was announced in Premier Ewart Brown’s Throne Speech last November and the target date for closing the clinic was last Friday. However, that date has been delayed for two weeks.

Mr. Edness said the announcement of the closure was premature and the lack of planning that followed caused anxiety for patients that was unnecessary.

“It was quite premature how they went about it and it has caused a lot of anxiety. They shouldn’t have gone through the exercise, it is just a misplaced effort,” he said.

The Medical Clinic, which operated from the Queen Elizabeth Nurses Residence before moving to the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital in 1998, was something Mr. Edness, as Health Minister under the UBP Government, helped to create.

According to Mr. Edness, before the clinic opened providing regular health care the patients could rely on, patients would go to the Emergency Room and would not pay for services.

Opening the free medical clinic, meant the Hospital received a subsidy for seeing the patients and the clients could rely on receiving healthcare.

“The way it was done was a secure and comforting way for the patients to provide them with these services,” he said.

In the new plan that was mailed out to every resident on the Island last month, the Ministry of Health revealed the clinic patients would be transferred to the Government’s Health Insurance Plan (HIP).

The patients would also be transferred, in consultation with Dr. Stanley James, the Attending Physician at the Medical Clinic, to one of 23 doctors on a list provided by the Ministry.

Before they can be transferred, however, the patients will have to go to the Financial Aid Department to be means tested and will then be issued a HIP card specially marked to identify them as former Medical Clinic patients.

Last week, the new Minister of Health, Michael Scott, said that this process was in line with the Government’s commitment to the community.

He said: “In line with the Throne Speech mandate, clients will be provided with basic healthcare therefore ensuring that the indigent are treated in the same manner as the rest of the community as it relates to healthcare.”

Mr. Edness, however, believes the closure offers no benefit to former Medical Clinic clients.

“It is misleading to say that they will be treated like the rest of the community,” he said.

“There are two things that these patients are being subjected to that they never had to in the comfort of the clinic.

“They will have to use HIP cards with special identifiers and hopefully they don’t get discriminated against with that.

“And now they have to go and be means tested with everyone else at Financial Aid.

“They used to be able to be screened in private by a Social Services nurse.

“There is nothing here that is being done that could add to their dignity,” Mr. Edness said. “This has caused them a lot of anxiety.”