"*This will look to use the ‘5-minute response time’ model, commonly used worldwide. An on-call fire engine will be crewed by on-call firefighters who respond from home or work to the station within five minutes after a message is passed to them via a modern alert system*"

Sometimes I scratch my head. I posted this last week after listening to comments about fire response for a number of days.

"*I waited to hear the response across multiple concerns, but have not heard anyone speak to this issue using a scientific approach, because this is science. Wayne Munroe confirmed it, he said "they havent asked for anything". So I looked it up. I found a comment referencing a 2003 ISO standard, that's 2003, ISO is a body whose work is documenting best practice standards, typically across the sciences. According to the comment, response time to a fire should be under 5mins. There should be one fire truck for every 5-10sq miles, i.e., Nassau alone needs 14 fire trucks. There should be one fire station for every 10,000 people, i.e., Nassau alone needs 14 fire stations. There should be 2.5 firefighters for every 10,000 people, i.e., Nassau alone needs 250 firefighters.*...

Other comments referenced the complement of vehicles at each station... I'm not under the illusion that 10million will do it, has to include sustained maintenance and upgrades

"*Material and logistics have been his delays*"

How can the govt award a contract to someone who has problems with "materials and logistics"? Isnt that the heart of a contract?

What happens is among every 100 nurses (or any profession) you have the cream. The problem isnt that "all" of our nurses are being recruited, it's that the best nurses and the nurses with specialized skills are being snatched up. It leaves us with some good nurses who are tied to "home", but a large quota of bad ones.

No. The only solution is a non obese population. And that's a very difficult thing and a very long time to fruition. Food tastes good and its addictive.

I remember when I was in college. Walking to/from school around a college town, in the morning, afternoon, evening it was normal for masses to be walking to their destination, jogging for exercise, on fields playing various sports.... one weekend I had the privilege of taking a ride in the country with a friend. We passed through a town and I was left slightly puzzled, I said this place reminds me of home but I couldnt figure out why. It wasnt until much later that I figured it out. Everybody we passed was sitting on a porch and over at least 250lbs. Literally. No walking, no sports.

I did note the following:

"*During the year the group increased its headcount as operations were expanded with the opening of additional facilities in New Providence and Grand Bahama, as well as increases in employee benefits borne by the group.*"

This should not have been a surprise to shareholders, with the amount of expansion projected some 3(?) years ago, they would have been aware of cost estimates on each facility for construction, personnel and operations, with minimum 3-5 year projections on revenue and expenses.

The populace isnt getting richer through Silicon valley like investments that lead to thousands of 100,000+ per annum jobs or a Guyana like oil bounty that "could" (I say could because even with 20%+GDP growth, the Guyanese govt has not improved the circumstances of their poor and working class But I'm sure they're getting richer). This means that the number of people unable to pay large medical bills will either stay the same or increase

What the report doesnt say is whether they're on target with projections, which typically indicate, even in the face of early losses, a general trend to profitability, or there'd be no reason to start in the first place.

Oh boy. I listened to the Minister of National Security explain how he knows nothing about fire fighting he just listens to the experts. Five years in, broken down fire trucks, small fires that balloon unnecessarily to millions in damage and an under resourced fire brigade. It seems like the entire cabinet is filled with people who've forgotten that a ministerial post is an oversight role. How can you four years in throw up your hands and say, well dont blame me, I don't know what they do. You havent read one article on best practice for the thing you accepted responsibility for? It's not nuclear fusion.

Your point of a cruise development on a grouper spawning site (I'm assuming you know, we'll know by tomorrow) is more of the same. Its complete craziness.

Another island sold to the cruise lines and then scratching our heads why tourism numbers have less impact? What are we doing???

Is hotel occupancy at 100%?

Lol. Traffic like a highway. They must be selling discounted PMH bread in the back there.

But seriously, the MP says they're trying to "coordinate and give people a chance to find other accommodations". What exactly does that have to do with very strange activity in the dark of night? Are the watchers and regulators being paid not to see?

Where'd the OKX cryptocurrency story disappear to? 5 senior Bahamians executives fired in 18months, four this year being replaced by foreign executives. With the labour department finding sufficient cause to revoke the permit for one foreign executive..

"*cited tourism analytics data indicating The Bahamas was the only Caribbean nation experiencing a decline in stopover visitors during the early months of 2024, despite rising overall arrivals driven by cruise tourism.*"

We've known this for years. Obie Wilchconbe was the last tourism exec that I recall who attempted to deny the negative trend in stopover visitor as Pamela Musgrove tried to explain to him the warnings signs.

While tourism execs were painting a rosy picture of the tariffs being an opportunity for us, last week I posted the following and had earlier pointed out the last time I heard a tourism exec speak about benefiting from a global downturn was during COVId. Imagine someone proposing that we could capitalize on a pandemic by having more people travel here. My comment last week:

*Anyway you put it, higher prices due to tariff related equipment cost increase or less people traveling it does not result in a rosy tourism "we can benefit from misery of others" PR story. The one piece of good news is Trumps position appears to be softening, it may mean the "might" wont materialize*