I haven't really weighed in too much on the Medical Clinic controversy, other really than to comment on the condescending manner in which the public has been treated in this and Dr. Brown's inherent and for a long time undeclared conflict of interest:
Dr. Brown is the owner and operator of a private health care facility (which advertises heavily through Google AdWords by the way whenever you enter a "Bermuda" search) and is also actively involved in public health care policy. The Health Minister is simply his public front.
In mature democracies, the elected leader of the Government, and other public officials, are required to not only declare their private interests, but also resign any active involvement they hold in private businesses, but particularly those in which they are integrally involved in developing public policy.
So I continue to be amazed at the lack of attention that the mainstream press in particular has given to this aspect of the Medical Clinic.
There is simply no way, no matter how small of a financial impact that you might want to argue closing the clinic could have, that a public figure with a private interest can be operating in both fields.
If there are 30 doctors who have agreed to take those patients as we are told, and Dr. Brown's clinic gets exactly 1/30th of those 1,500, that's 50 new patients for Dr. Brown.
I should say that I think that you can make a case that the Medical Clinic should be closed, but I also think you can make a very strong case that it should remain open. However the public figure making that case cannot, under any circumstances, stand to personally gain a private financial interest from that decision - and the Premier does stand to gain if 1,500 patients are forced to get treatment from private doctors.
Some might argue, as one or two have privately to me, that it's not a 'big enough financial benefit' to warrant attention from the media. Well, where do you draw that line? Nor can we assume that the closure of the Medical Clinic isn't the first step in a plan to divert public health care services towards the private sector.
And it would become of even more concern when you have someone going on record in the latter part of 2006 about wanting to open their own private hospital in Bermuda. And Dr. Brown did just that in this Fall 2006 Howard article:
“I still have in mind the establishment of a private hospital — that’s still on my list for Bermuda,” he says. “And in politics, I always wanted to seek the leadership of my country and I’m still in that process.”
That statement expresses an ambition - which while reasonable for any private citizen - is wholly incompatible and unacceptable for a politician who has a current, and apparently growing interest in private health care, to be eliminating public health care services - the knock on effect of which is more patients into the private sector.
And perhaps more worringly, one could make a very reasonable argument that those two statements above are linked, and that now that Dr. Brown has the leadership of the country he can now establish the public sector framework for his private hospital.
Perhaps the article said it best:
So far, Brown has continued to mix medicine with politics.
Bermuda, we have a problem.
Posted by Christian S. Dunleavy