The Minister of Health Nelson Bascome last night adamantly denied claims of redundancies in the Government Health Insurance Plan (HIP) department.

He was responding to concerns raised in a news conference yesterday afternoon by the Bermuda Public Service Union (BPSU) president Armell Thomas and general secretary Ed Ball Jr. that jobs in the health insurance department were being outsourced.

HIP has been plagued by negative headlines because of a backlog that meant returning claims made by doctors were taking, in some instances, two years to return.

To try and cut down on the backlog additional temporary staff had been hired and an off-the-shelf computer programme was used until the process could be fully automated.

Minister Bascome said the Ministry had met last week with the staff to explain the automation process, not to tell them their jobs had been outsourced.

He said: "The release by the BPSU that redundancies will be made is irresponsible and alarmist to the hard-working staff.

"The Permanent Secretary, Director and Assistant Director of the Health Insurance section met with the BPSU in February and gave an update of the planned automation of HIP.

"At that meeting the Assistant Director advised that HIP employs eight permanent staff and fifteen temporary employees on six month contracts.

"The union expressed no concerns with the outsourcing of claims processing, as this did not impact the permanent staff.

"This new automated system will require the retention of all permanent staff and also an increase in staff levels to keep claims current."

In a letter to the editor in this paper in March this year Permanent Secretary Warren Jones even praised the staff in the department saying: "Staff are working diligently towards this end and they have my thanks for their efforts to date."

According to Mr. Thomas and Mr. Ball, however, in the news conference yesterday, the HIP staff had been told an American company, Apollo, had been hired to run the HIP department and their jobs were going to be "contracted out" with a six-month window before they were taken over.

They had met with the staff on Wednesday night and after hearing their concerns called the news conference yesterday saying they said they were tired of not being consulted and hearing about Bermudian jobs being outsourced.

Mr. Thomas said: "We met with them about a year ago but they never came back to the table. So the staff of the department just found out last week. So the problem goes on and on.

"When we met last year there were various options on the table. It's only when we hear from the members that we know something has happened."

Last night Mr. Bascome added that the bidding stage for the vendor process had been shortlisted to two companies and that negotiations had begun.

He added: "The Minister of Health strongly reiterates that permanent staff jobs are not under threat and there is no plan to make people redundant."