#BTSpeakingOut – Accountability is sadly lacking

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY. 

by Shelly-Ann Forde

A friend spoke on this topic in another capacity recently. Accountability – The act of ensuring a task is completed and a person, professional or institution is held to a certain standard.

It is severely lacking in Barbados and I cannot fathom why.

Parents are wary of holding children accountable for their actions and holding persons accountible in the professional realm is treated as a personal affront.

Much less the holding accountable of the politically appointed. And while we are maintaining political favouritism and correctness, and practising institutional blindness the building is burning down around us.

Accountability does not need to be the ‘off with his head’ dispatch of Alice in Wonderland but should be the putting in place of efficient systems, standards and guidelines as well as appropriate consequences to ensure that the current deficiencies and disparities are dealt with.

Without accountability there is no responsibility, and those with little choice have to rely on the moral compass of those who hold positions of power.

Case in point, QEH. Why should vulnerable patients at sometimes the worst time in their lives be made to wait in the corridors of QEH for hours to be seen by overworked health professionals?

Who are we holding accountable?

What we do not need is a Ministerial walk through, a placating media release, what we need is a truly systemic review.

There is no debate that the system is overwhelmed, if there is someone still debating that tell them to walk into A&E tonight or pass the elderly and infirmed lining the corridors waiting for dressings or to be seen in Outpatient’s clinic.