“How about us crafting the narrative admitting that we have been making mistakes, admitting that we have some serious issues to deal with, and admitting that we have to reset the button?” remarked CEO of the Millennium Heights Medical Complex, Dr Damian Greaves as the MHMC shares its strategic plan for 2025 on Friday, January 24th.
Under the theme: “The Power of We: Transforming Care Through Engagement”, Dr. Greaves says the management of the Medical Complex will have a more direct line of communication with the public, ensuring transparency prevails in all operations of healthcare provision.
“A narrative is being crafted out there for us. How about us crafting the narrative with some of the positives? How about us doing that? How about us going out and talking about the overcrowding before somebody talks about it and the shortfalls? And this is what I intend to do as CEO,” Dr. Greaves explained.
The OKEU Hospital, which forms part of the MHMC, has been at the centre of much criticism by patients since it was open to the public during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. $32 million annually in previous government allocations to the hospital were insufficient, as lamented by Health Minister Moses Jn. Baptiste.
According to present data, the hospital now receives $60 million annually from the present administration, but requires a baseline of $100 million annually to function at its best.
CEO Greaves says it is high time the management of the MHMC is honest with the public about the struggles facing the hospital and hampering its operations. “Let us speak about it. And let us be brutally frank and honest about it and try to deal with it.”
Dr. Stephen King, guest speaker at the MHMC’s year launch, says the hospital must continue adapting to advancements in public healthcare policy objectives. Dr. King highlighted the recently-launched Universal Health Coverage policies of the government and charged the hospital to do its best in meeting that agenda.
“We are the threshold of UHC. What is it going to be? We’re going to have a unified information system where we can all share information. Why? Health decisions are made on information. Good information is how good health decisions are made,” he said.
Health Minister Jn. Baptiste says the government is on the cusp of changing and revamping the MHMC’s Board of Directors. This move, he notes, aims to bring fresh faces and perspectives to the management of healthcare at the island’s premier health institution.
Jn. Baptiste boasted of the present government’s investment in health financing in Saint Lucia and says efforts are continuing. “20 years from now you will look back and say to yourselves, but really we were under this weight of criticism and everything but we were already pioneers,” he said.
Last August, an injection of $15 million into the OKEU Hospital was used to pay and stabilise the hospital’s debt obligations to allow it more fiscal space to operate.
