By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tibunemedia.net

A senior Government medical official has admitted that around $100 million, or 25-30 per cent of its annual healthcare spending, is wasted.

The stunning admission by Dr Glen Beneby, the Government’s chief medical officer, will likely ignite further debate over whether the Government’s stewardship and governance systems will be able to ensure ‘value for money’ with the bigger funding pool it is seeking for National Health Insurance (NHI).

Dr Beneby, a panellist at a recent NHI discussion hosted by the Economic Society of the College of the Bahamas (COB), said the Government was spending $400 million annually in the public health care sector.

“We know that we are spending $400 million on average in the Government sector. We have yet to determine what we are spending in total. That’s where the discussion needs to go,” he added.

Dr Beneby then conceded: “We know of the $400 million we are spending, we have about 25-30 per cent wastage, so we are getting the value of $300 million.

“If we can and improve our system by improving the way we function, the way our protocols are, improve the efficiency of our system, we have $100 million today estimated that we can access. This is in the public sector.”

Dr Beneby’s admission is not far off the 40 per cent public health system ‘wastage’ estimate given by former National Insurance Board (NIB) executive, Derek Osborne, to the Grand Bahma Chamber of Commerce earlier this year.

Dr Beneby, meanwhile, said an estimated $2,400 is being spent per Bahamian each year for healthcare, while in Belize, the spend is less than $500 - and with a longer life expectancy.

“What we are saying is that we are not getting value for the money spent. We cannot accept what we are doing as adequate. We have to change the model; we have to reform the healthcare system,” he said.

“This is not in any way to cause hardship on any sector of our society. What we are aiming to do is to ensure that the monies that are spent are spent better, and people get value for the money that is being spent.”

He added: “The second leading cause of death at this moment is due to avoidable causes, such as poisons and gunshot wounds. These are things we can avoid by changing our system and educating our people in a different way.

“Our vision is that by the year 2030 we will be in the top 10 in the world. We need good, sustainable funding and better practices to do that. We can do it. We have the best Critical Care Block in the region; some of the best doctors per capita in the region; and the highest number of specialists among developing countries in this region.”

Dr Beneby continued: “We must be more efficient in our administration and governance. We must have evidence based practices for what we are doing. There are four pillars of universal health coverage. One, there must be single governance. We must be doing the same thing in the public and private sectors.

“We must deal with the social determinants of health, the way we live, how we are educated, how we think about what we are doing. We must improve our present system, which we are doing now. We must change the model of care from where we keep patients in hospital for long periods of time. We must take patients who need to be out of hospital, out of the hospital, and put them in residential homes. It costs us as we speak, to keep a patient in a bed, $500-$1,000 a day, just to give them three meals.”