Barbadian Health Minister Donville Inniss on Saturday acknowledged that his ministry’s active enforcement of a policy which restricts a non-national’s access to free medical attention at public health institutions will impact those with unregularized residency status.
However, the minister said that there has been an unjustified furore in the regional media over a policy that has always been in place but which is now being streamlined.
Speaking during the closing press conference held at the International Conference Centre for the Caricom-convened Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD), Inniss said that “the policy of Barbados has always been and continues to be that healthcare in publicly owned institutions in Barbados remain free at the point of delivery of service to citizens and permanent residents of Barbados only…That does not mean that citizens, and permanent residents or visitors…in Barbados will not have access to healthcare,” he added.
At the opening of the meeting on Friday, Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy, who assumed the Chairmanship of COHSOD called on the body to ensure that every Caricom national received the benefits of health care in the region.
According to Inniss, “individuals who arrive at Grantley Adams airport on holiday and are ill will get emergency services free of cost…I sought as Minister of Health to bring some clarity to what services all residents in Barbados long term or short term are entitled to without cost.
And that would be emergency care services as well as services related to those who are HIV positive or have communicable contagious illnesses as defined by the Ministry of Health,” he added.
Inniss stressed that the Barbadian government is committed to respecting the human rights of citizens. “I wish to make it abundantly clear that no statement made by myself, as the Minister of Health in Barbados has in any way sought to infringe on the basic human rights of any citizen, permanent resident long term or short term visitor to Barbados,” he said.
The policy which was publicized earlier this month states that “no medical services, including diagnostic, clinical or pharmaceutical shall be provided to individuals who are not citizens or lawful permanent residents.” However, it said that “medical services can be provided in circumstances of genuine emergency, pre-natal care, immunization, conditions of current public health significance and HIV/AIDS treatment;” The policy also stated that “individuals who are neither citizens nor permanent residents shall be advised to seek medical treatment from a private sector provider of his or her choice.”
However, Inniss did say that the enforcement of the policy would affect persons with unregularized immigration status. “What it may have thrown up, is certainly the number of individuals residing in Barbados for prolonged periods who have not had their residency status regularized.
And I’ve made it clear that that is a matter for the Immigration Department to pronounce on and not the Ministry of Health,” he said. Barbados is home to a large number of unregularized citizens from other Caricom countries including Guyana.
Meanwhile, Ramsammy, while attempting to contextualize the statements he made on Friday, said that there were simply not enough financial resources in the Caribbean to meet the escalating demands of the health sector and said whatever interventions are made must be in keeping with the basic human rights.
“I believe that even at the wealthiest of the Caribbean nations, we cannot say that we have enough resources to meet the demands [of] health,” Ramsammy said. “But we have to make sure, and this is something the Caribbean is proud of again, that whatever we do in meeting those demands that the fundamental human rights of people; citizens and non-citizens, are met,” he said. “We would not always like the kind of interventions being taken, but countries have to address the constraints. We can’t put it under the rug and so that was the issue I was raising,” he added.
Ramsammy said that while the matter had not been discussed at the COHSOD meeting, the Barbadian minister as well as all the other representatives renewed the commitment to ensure that the fundamental human rights of people are respected.
