Statement Issued by Senator Johnathan Joseph:
It’s Time To Sanitize Our Healthcare By Firing Molwyn Joseph
I call upon Prime Minister Gaston Browne to immediately relieve MP Molwyn Joseph of his current portfolio, and to appoint a new Health Minister, who is willing to take the necessary steps to turn around our failing national healthcare system.
Firing Molwyn Joseph will sanitize Antigua and Barbuda’s healthcare, bringing an end to his unprecedented incompetence, suffocating micromanagement and callous disregard of the recommendations made by highly trained technicians within the public service.
It’s time to allow the experts to do their work to get healthcare back on track.
The vast majority of Antiguans and Barbudans agree that the failures of Molwyn Joseph completely disqualify him from his current position:
Mount St. Johns Medical Center (MSJMC)
1. The 4 operating theatres are in a state of disrepair, with urgent cases requiring surgery being turned away. A makeshift operating theatre was hastily converted from an endoscopy room, without installing the proper HEPA-filtered air conditioning, putting patients at high risk for post-operative infections. Later, work started on converting a room on the maternity ward to a primitive operating theatre.
2. With MSJMC in its current state, our nation cannot handle a mass casualty situation, putting us all at risk in the event of a natural disaster or other potential mass casualty event.
3. The hospital remains without air conditioning – the result of inadequate maintenance of the chiller system, greatly inconveniencing staff and patients alike.
4. Basic supplies are often unavailable including bandages and sterile gauze, which is critical for the care of diabetic feet.
5. Medications are often unavailable, including critical chemotherapy drugs required to begin cancer treatment. In some cases, the course of treatment requires chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy, then surgery, and this timeline has been lengthened from weeks into several months. The closure of the Cancer Center has made this situation dire.
6. Diagnostic machines are down or outdated. The MRI has been down since COVID, forcing patients to pay exorbitant amounts to get scans done elsewhere. For example: the estimated cost of going to Trinidad with one relative (airline tickets, hotel accommodation, meals, transportation, the MRI scan, etc.) is EC $9500, plus lost time from work.
7. The new 64 slice CT Scanner is down, forcing the use of the outdated and sluggish 16 slice CT Scanner, once stored at Holberton Hospital. This archaic machine produces lower quality images, which could lead to less accurate diagnoses.
8. Patients requiring ultrasound investigations are subjected to extremely long wait times. New appointments are in May and June.
9. The laboratory is constantly short of reagents for routine blood work (like PSA and thyroid function testing), forcing patients to go to private labs. and pay substantial sums of money out-of-pocket; these sums can often exceed one-third of a person’s monthly salary.
10. Where tests are available, results have often taken 4-6 weeks to be delivered to the district clinics. There has been no substantial investment to improve the laboratory services.
Community Clinics
11. Clare Hall & All Saints clinics are in a state of major disrepair, with no dates for reopening.
12. Our clinics have been consistently neglected and left short of supplies, compromising the quality of the primary healthcare system on which our most vulnerable citizens and residents rely.
Medical Benefits Scheme
14. MBS has removed many drugs from the formulary and those on formulary are in constant short supply. Patients are waiting 7-10 days to collect medicines.
15. To add insult to injury, Molwyn Joseph has been trying to push “Universal Healthcare,” which requires an increase in in medical benefits contributions, while our healthcare quality is in freefall.
Shockingly, these comprise an incomplete list of the problems plaguing our healthcare system at both the national and community levels, under the failed stewardship of Molwyn Joseph.
Who else but a failed Minister of Health would sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Antiguans and Barbudans to be among the first people to use an unproven cancer prevention vaccine?
We must also recognize that all of these health failures are ultimately the responsibility of Gaston Browne. It is the Prime Minister who continually allowed Molwyn Joseph to fail with impunity, while the population suffered.
The Prime Minister ought to recognize that the parlous state of our national healthcare system is not a political issue. He must, therefore, act swiftly to replace Molwyn Joseph in the public interest and ignore any concerns about political optics or his personal pride.
St. John’s, Antigua
February 8, 2024
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MP Molwyn Joseph needs to show alot more empathy towards us, the poor people & he also needs to get his priorities set right with SLBMC. There are too many persons crying out for help in reference to our lone hospital. If there is a shortage of manpower, why not enroll our young doctors, nurses & technicians on staff?
And also If elected some day brother how would you help with the long hours waiting periods to be looked after ???
He doesn’t have to tell you. He is not the Minister of Health. Pose your question to the current minister. If you live in Antigua, hope you never go to what they call a hospital. Because with all the germs floating around up there because of the broken ventilation system, you may not come out alive.
Another clown seeking relevance!
@ MAGA in Antigua!
You MINIONS HAVE NO SHAME. THIS COUNTRY IS FALLING APART AT THE SEAMS, including the EXTREMELY POOR HEALTH SYSTEM, and YOU NUMBSKULL have NO solutions but trying to silence the opposition.
You have no solutions BUT ALL INCOMPETENCE!!!!!!!
Your board fees and Pedro Caribe are assured though, sucking off the backs of the POOREST in the country!!!!
And a jackass like you braying at the moon. There are clowns in droves around with their snouts in the trough but I’m sure you’re not one of them – some hope!
And yet the Stooges keep yapping and jaw bone flapping like empty stuffed-button suited buffoons: winning alarm as staid, vapid talking air-heads of the mediocre clan culture governance we tolerate, and are crying about: “But we meet um-so”. A dem-dey-leff-um-fu-Ar’we! Immune and satiated? Lawd!
Come on all you naysayers I cannot respect the opinions of anyone who hide their comments behind a fake name or alias! Be grown ,proud men and women and identify yourself with your opinions.
How about YOU respecting people’s anonymity (which could simply be for safety reasons), if you want all and sundry to know who you are, and may try to find out where you live; then good luck to you @ Miron Reynolds.
REMEMBER, EVIL HIDES AMONGST THE GOOD!
@ Jonathan Joseph….You will never be elected in St.Mary’s North. You sound STUPID every time you oprn your mouth. UPP MPS hitting the AIRWAVES sounded DUMB. DUMB and more DUMB.
@miron, What else is your opinion, no comment on this salient matter
@Jonathan from your mouth to God’s ears
Each day I pray for repreve for our health care workers. I consider the Ministry of Wellness’ approach one of “dis” (disrespect disregard dishonesty dismissive distress and disease).
Disappointment & Disappear is their mantra
God never gives Us more than We can bear, so stay tuned….
Antigua’s health system is in dire straights, and when I read the inane comments from the likes of @ MAGA and @ concerned citizen (and just wait for other like-minded commentaries), sometimes I wonder why they would continually support an out of sorts Health Minister like Molwyn Joseph who is behind the “crash and burn” of health care in this country.
It’s akin to watching a house burning down while people standing around with a cup of water trying to put it out!
SADLY, THIS IS WHERE WE ARE AT PRESENT WITH THE INAPPROPRIATE FUNDING AND LACK OF CARE.
Remember, Molwyn Joseph has been involved for two terms now, and everything has got markedly worse.
If we Antiguans had the mindset of our neighbours in Barbuda, there would have been more of a fight and backlash – without a shadow of a doubt!
The Labourites are crying bloody murder as they personally feel the horrors of Molwyn Joseph and our ruined Healthcare system. Yet reprehensible clowns come on this forum spilling the cool aid venom. These people are hopeless. Our country is sinking into oblivion and they continue to prop up Gaston Browne, Molwyn Joseph, Chet Green and all the other failures. This is why the rabied DAWG keeps them around, gives them jobs (to continue bloating the public sector) feeds them crumbs and make them unconscionable idiots.
Any rational thinking person knows indubitably that Molwyn Joseph IS the problem with health, just like Gaston Browne IS Antigua and Barbuda’s biggest problem.
The fact is ALP IS the scourge of our country. Give it time. It’s just a matter of time before the beggarly, semi-illiterate Labourites and Gastonites’s cry reach its limit. Thank God for the UPPs PDV program.
@ Miron Reynolds
This matter is on the front pages for a media figure tied to the ruling ABLP political party had an experience that is indicative of the current state of affairs at the Medical Center.
The 3 points you made says so much about you.
1. The commentators are naysayers
2. You can not respect the comments of people who hide their names
3. Be grown proud men and women
Myron I’m going to guess if you are Antiguan and Barbudan you do not live in Antigua; or if you do you know little of the culture.
There is no pride in being a victim. People don’t hide tgrir name for lack of pride.
Victimization is endemic and a weapon used in the political culture. Those who live here are fully aware of the fact that victimhood and being debased is part and parcel of the way those in power stay in power.
Myron! you don’t go and stand in the middle of the street when a moving truck is speeding towards you.
1. Here is an article of critical national importance outlining the unimaginable conditions at both the medical center and at the primary care facilities.
The author calls for the sacking of the Minister as well as point his fingers to the PM.
Are you objecting to the article? Is this some sort of political stunt to support the Minister of Health and The Prime Minister?
To the degree commentators concur with what was written; and may have experienced the conditions describe in the article, you call them naysayers.
Miron: if the commentators are naysayers, what are you? Are you suggesting they should just duck it up and live with the conditions at the Medical Center?
2. From the New York Post to the New York Times. From The Daily Mail UK to the Daily Express UK; in media markets around the world even on Reddit where a commentator is unlikely to be known. Comments are made in alias even in those large Countries.
3. Be grown proud men and women.
Myron Reynolds: Our people have been beaten down by the same people who they choose to lift them up.
We are a proud people who just want better for ourselves our families, our neighbors, and the communities in which we live.
And thank you!!!
Senator Johnathan Joseph for providing such a comprehensive report on the current situation in our Healthcare system.
This is not about politics, it’s about life and death.
I concur wholeheartedly! Bravo Winston, bravo … 👏🏾
@ Miron Reynolds
Its not just Antigua and Barbuda where people don’t always express the truth and hold their leaders accountable. For people are too afraid to “lose what they have,” so they push their morals and values aside.
As a stand up person who cares and grownup proud person, we look forward to your expressing some of the other issues plaguingand identifying yourself
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