Former President of Dominica, His Excellency Eliud Williams, has responded to concerns that the proposed Hospital Authority Bill going before Parliament in September will see the privatization of the National Hospital.
Williams said, “We also and very importantly [have been] given the responsibility to review systems and provisions at the hospital and in particular the governance structure at the hospital and on that we have done a lot of work because a fundamental problem at the hospital today is the absence of clear leadership”.
According to him, in other countries, policies and decisions are developed and taken by a board. In ideal cases, the budget approved by Government is then passed on to the Hospital board who then manages it.
He continued, “We like to refer to it as a National Hospital, it is financed by Government so at no point(have)any work we’ve done have we tried to convey in any way that the hospital is going to be privatized. In fact it can’t be; it is Dominica’s hospital”.
The former president is a member of the National Health Commission(NHC). The NHC has the responsibility to advise on some of the aspects of the proposed Hospital Authority Bill. One of the major changes proposed is the creation of a new post of a Chief Executive Officer.
