By NATARIO McKENZIE Tribune Business Reporter nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net OVERSTAFFING through the politically-related "pile on" of public service workers has left the Public Hospitals Authority (PHA) with less than 20 per cent of its annual budget available to purchase medicines and equipment, a doctor telling Tribune Business yesterday that an exorbitant amount went to employee salaries. Well-known orthopedic surgeon, Dr Robert Gibson, said successive governments have used the public health sector to "pile on" public service workers, leaving less to be spent on medical supplies and equipment. Speaking at a meeting of the Rotary Club of West Nassau yesterday, Dr Gibson said: "A tremendous amount of the public health budget is spent on salaries, and that's the problem. When our governments decided to make the public service the major employer, they actually created a problem for us. "The Public Hospitals Authority has a salary budget of about 80 per cent of its total budget. People have been piled on. Governments have used the health care industry to pile on public service workers. We are running a hospital system on about 17 per cent of our budget; that supplies medication and everything else." The PHA has responsibility for the Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH), Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre (SRC); and Rand Memorial Hospital (RAND) in Grand Bahama. Dr Gibson said: "The problem is we are just overstaffed because no government wants to fire them. All of a sudden the recession hit and you can't turn people loose. The civil service shouldn't be so expensive. Back in the 1950s and 1960s it was hard to get a public job. It's been so easy to put people in the health care sector." He estimated that between 80 to 85 per cent of PMH's budget is spent on employee salaries. Dr Gibson said there continues to be complaints about the state of public hospitals and level of service. "It has a problem," he added. "There's overcrowding, service delays, supply deficits and all of these affect the quality of care you can get, as opposed to one of the private health care facilities like Doctor's Hospital. "It's easier to produce a better result in the private sector because I can go to Doctor's Hospital, and say I can guarantee 'x' number of patients if you get me this and I get it. If you go to the public sector and say I have 'x' number of patients and I need this, they will tell you need to try something else, that's too expensive or something like that," Dr Gibson said. He added that there has been a lack of 'political will' in terms of creating a positive improvement in the public health sector. "It has not been the agenda of the providers, but the agenda of someone at the top telling you what you should have as opposed to coming and asking you what you need," Dr Gibson said. "As long as it's like that you will always have problems in the system." Illustrating this, he said: "We have an expensive telecommunications device in the operating room at the Rand, but they can't communicate with us because we don't have it in ours. Why waste all that money? Why not spend that on supplies you use everyday?"