Opposition Member, Edison Baird, has called for better x-ray services at the Princess Alexandra Hospital. Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, he said that on Monday this week a young man injured in a road accident was taken to the hospital for treatment only to find that the x-ray machine was not functioning.

Hon. Hubert Hughes and Hon. Edison Baird

“He had to be rushed to the Hughes Medical Centre. When I brought it to the House of Assembly, the Minister said that the Health Authority has an agreement with the provider of the equipment to service it,” he reported. “What I find to be strange is that irrespective of the nature of the agreement, those people should have been here to fix that machine.”

He recalled that some years ago the Anguilla Government sent an Anguillian abroad to be trained to service x-ray machines and all other machines at the hospital but he was being denied employment by the Health Authority. “I spoke to him some months ago and he said that he is very much eager to go back to his job,” Mr. Baird said. “I am calling on the Minister to look into the possibility of re-hiring this trained Anguillian.”

Mr. Baird complained that the hospital was not in a position to order drugs, charging that the Health Authority had not paid the suppliers.

Another matter on which Mr. Baird spoke was Social Security. “I am very much concerned about Government dipping into Social Security money because that is really there for the workers of Anguilla,” he said, stating that it was a problem in a number of OECS territories where Governments were also interfering with monies in the Social Security Funds.

Mr. Baird said that Chief Minister Osbourne Fleming had expressed the view that Social Security should purchase the Cinnamon Reef Hotel. “I believe that would be a mistake as Social Security has to be very careful getting involved in these real estate development projects,” he said, citing a number of cases in the region where such investments went wrong.

Opposition Member, Hubert Hughes, spoke on various other problems affecting the island. One of the matters was the Government’s 2009 budget which he said involved much expenditure and he could not see where the revenue would come from.
“The Government is now in serious financial difficulty,” he charged.

| Printer-friendly page | Send this article to a friend |

World News