Most Bermuda residents are satisfied with the quality of local health care, according to a recent survey.

The survey conducted for the Bermuda Hospitals Board last summer showed that 64 percent of those surveyed found the quality of healthcare in Bermuda today to be either excellent or good while 82 percent said they were completely or generally satisfied with the range of healthcare services available on the Island.

"This has been an important and worthwhile exercise for the BHB, but for this to be truly worthwhile we have to act on it," said BHB chairman Jonathan Brewin.

"We are pleased with the results, however, we will shortly be meeting with our senior managers to address some of the successes and shortfalls in our services and to devise a plan of improvement.

"We will use this as a baseline for monitoring our improvements going forward."

Mr. Brewin added in an interview yesterday that he was pleased with the high level of satisfaction given anecdotal evidence that people lacked confidence in Bermuda health care.

"We are happy with it as a start but obviously we want to take it much higher than that," he said.

Mr. Brewin said there were two sides to the survey's finding that 26 percent of those questioned had travelled overseas for medical treatment, primarily because the medical attention was not available on the Island.

"Some will contract illnesses that we are not equipped to deal with and probably never will be, for example neurosurgery," he said.

"There are some specialities for which Bermuda will probably never have the expertise on-Island.

"The second thing is that there is a segment of the community who automatically look abroad because they think that will be best.

We want them to understand what it available in Bermuda so that they don't think of abroad as being the first option."

Further results from the survey will be released at a later date, a spokeswoman for the hospitals said.

"It was important for us to hear from the public about what they think of the hospitals," said BHB CEO Joan Dillas-Wright.

"We will use these results to understand how we can provide a better service to the community, as well as the best way to communicate with the public."

The research was conducted by Total Marketing and Communications in August, 2003.

The company contacted a sample of 400 Bermuda residents at random by telephone and asked 12 minutes worth of questions.