Mia’s blessing for QEH chief

The much talked about appointment of Juliette Bynoe-Sutherland as executive chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) has been given the thumbs up by Prime Minister Mia Mottley.

Mottley endorsed Bynoe-Sutherland over the weekend during the Barbados Labour Party’s 81st Annual General Conference, as the right candidate for the job.

Her support has come in the wake of criticism over Government’s decision to hire Bynoe-Sutherland, the wife of Minister Dwight Sutherland, to the paid position.

But during her speech on Saturday, Mottley said she saw nothing wrong with the hospital’s former chairman’s ascension to the new post.

“Down at the hospital Juliette, I want you to know that you shall now walk alone. You didn’t pick yourself, you don’t report to your husband…Let’s get real, in small societies there is a limited talent pool and if we were to start saying that people who were related to each other should not work, then half of the Government of Barbados would be in trouble.

“What matters is that there is no patent conflict, that there is no attempt to be able to influence things inappropriately, and in your case you report to a Minister of Health whose name is Jeffrey Bostic and who reports to me. Let’s not get tied up,” Mottley said.

“But secondly, Juliette’s mission is to transform the hospital to an independent entity. We thought it would have been appropriate to be able go to a statutory board…”

The Prime Minister commended Senator Dr Jerome Walcott for leading that charge, saying he had put people on the board who were capable of servicing the needs of a modern hospital such as a senior executive from a major bank regionally and the principal of the University of the West Indies.

She contended that the previous Democratic Labour Party government did the opposite.