Unanswered questions

Leader of Government Business in the Senate Senator Jerome Walcott has expressed concern about financial improprieties at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, although the establishment of a board of directors in 2005 was expected to alleviate some of those issues.

Speaking at the introduction of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Amendment Bill 2019 into the Upper House, Senator Walcott said: “The hospital was given $129 million in this year’s Estimates, and the levy we established for the QEH through NIS managed to raise $39 million between January and August this year. It has also received assistance from a number of philanthropic organisations such as the Rotary clubs, the Sandy Lane Charitable Trust and Rihanna’s Clara and Lionel Foundation, and another $10 million was allocated in June to upgrade the Accident and Emergency department.”

Despite all this, Walcott added, there have been significant discrepancies in the QEH’s books.

“You have a situation where there is a lot of work to be done in terms of managing finances. For example, there was a gap of $13.1 million between an actual stock count and the matching book value of inventory, an amount that has to be written off. A significant difference between what you have and what you say you have.  The last qualified audit is 2011, and currently there is an additional $7.1 million that no one can explain where it has gone, what it has purchased, or who it has paid. This is being investigated.”

He also spoke of the sudden disappearance and ultimately resignations of some of the senior officials of the hospital, including former CEO Dr. Dexter James, following the Estimates debate. “All I can say about the past CEO is that he was invited and indeed participated in the Estimates debate on the Friday, he was questioned on the Friday evening, he did not come back the Monday because he was ill, then he proceeded on sick leave for some substantial time after that and subsequently he resigned and the matter has been settled.”

He added: “The procurement manager was at the Estimates on the Friday, resigned on the Monday, and the Director of Finance resigned a couple of weeks ago. When the auditors were doing the audit the person called in sick a week after the individual resigned. Clearly all was not well in finance and procurement in the QEH and this has to be addressed, and the changes will address this.”

In terms of the nurses, one of the problems related to the fact that there was a high failure rate when it came to the regional nursing qualification, which all nurses working in the CARICOM region needed in order to become registered nurses.

“When we first set up the board, we were bringing on 30 nurses who had completed the Barbados Community College programme each year, and the failure rate for the regional qualifying exam was 60 per cent. That meant only 10 or 12 nurses would pass the regional exam, so they would come on as registered nurses while the others would be nursing assistants. So we increased the intake of graduates from 30 to 100 taking into consideration the failure rate, and the fact that nurses would migrate.”

Senator Walcott noted that the Ministry of Health had entered discussions with the Ministry of Education to address the high failure rate when it came to the regional qualifying examination, and said the decision to change the managerial structure of the hospital came about after “the board was given 16 months to review its systems, have its retreats, and come to grips with some of the major issues the hospital was facing.”

Senator Walcott, who formerly worked at the QEH in several capacities as a medical doctor and was the Minister of Health when the decision was made to change the management structure of the QEH in 2005, expressed disappointment that the institution was facing the same problems it faced in those days, and in some cases things had grown worse.