Hon. Member of the Legislative Assembly Claude Hogan is calling for a working group to take negotiations on Montserrat’s future health needs forward.
Hogan said the report produced by the Mott McDonald consultancy firm could only be used as an initial negotiating position and that it does not inspire future growth for Montserrat.
The full text of his statement follows:
“We as an island people, as a British Overseas Territory, need a fully Integrated Health Service that fulfils the needs of our people now and into the future. We need a health service that will inspire people to come and reside here, to come and invest here, to invest in the future of Montserrat just  as we need the British government to do now.
“What we have before us so far falls short of recognizing that Montserrat is here to stay. Our people have career ambitions and livelihoods to manage, which cannot be sustained on outsourced elements of our Health Care. Given its factual and clinical inaccuracies, unless we accept either that babies can only be born in daylight hours or that we have the capacity to fly planes 24/7, this report can only be taken as a negotiating stance with which to engage. As such, I would ask the cabinet to form a working group of all the relevant talents to engage in such a negotiation. To fail to do so would be to fail the first priority of any government: to protect its citizens.”
