During Tuesday’s sitting of the Legislative Assembly, Minister of Education and Health Dr. Ingrid Buffonge shared several critical requests made in the recent Budget Support Mission to enhance healthcare, education, and social services on the island. While no figures were shared, the minister said it was important to keep the public aware of her ministry’s plans to support the well being of the people of Montserrat.
Education Priorities
“In education, we have asked for the following, all in line with the United Nations 2015 Sustainable Development Goals and our Sustainable Development Plan locally. We have asked, as we said we would, for a special educational needs programme that has a legal and policy framework, an adequate staffing complement, and training provision that mirrors that in the United Kingdom. For this to happen, we welcome an assessment or a reassessment of our school population through a UK team.”
“The staffing complement must include a speech and language therapist, which we are hopefully shortly to get, and a full complement of special educational needs staff. This will also include a special educational needs coordinator for each school, an educational psychologist—this role is presently being advertised—special educational needs teachers, and special educational needs personal assistants.”
“We have asked for funding for after-school programmes to ensure that our children, during the vulnerable period from 2PM to 6PM when there is often no or inadequate parental support, are safe, learning, or engaged in career development, sporting activities, or other safe activities. So we are asking for money for after-school clubs where our children can be protected, safe, and can learn something.”
“We have asked also for an extension of the school meals programme to include breakfast and for a lunchroom or cafeteria for the Montserrat Secondary School. Our children, Madam Speaker, should not be expected to sit on the ground or on a wall or on a stone to eat meals at school.”
“We have asked for funding to repair the schools. It is too great a risk to not have repairs done. Two students have recently suffered broken limbs, and a teacher has been injured due to faulty buildings.”
Healthcare Requests
“In health, we have discussed the problem of medical evacuation with a view to improving on the present situation. This is not a funding request as it does not cost extra to get a patient out faster, but it warranted discussion on the importance of timely medical evacuation for our time-critical cases.”
“We campaigned on appropriately managing the complications of diabetes and hypertension, which are prevalent on this island. Please note that by the age of 60, 60% of Caribbean people are diabetic and hypertensive. Over the last 40 years, we have watched the onset of complications in this population. Despite a commitment to primary health care and prevention programmes, it is essential that we focus on these complications.”
“We hope for a specific focus on the cardiovascular complications of diabetes and hypertension, a focus on end-stage kidney disease, and a focus on blindness, which can occur in all members of our population.”
“At the Budget Support Mission, we asked for funding for visiting specialists to include a vascular surgeon and a vascular team to assess and repair circulatory issues at the level of the blood vessels, thus avoiding amputation.”
“For the management of stroke and heart attack, this is more about following appropriate guidelines, liaising with the appropriate specialists, and timely medication. This is about policy and protocol and less about extra money.”
“We are presently liaising with specialists about the option of local eye surgery for our elderly population in order to avoid the cost and inconvenience of travel for eye care.”
“We have asked with our visiting specialist programme to cover the cost of visiting endoscopists for the early screening of gastrointestinal cancers, and we are on our way with discussions about a cancer registry as promised. We want to end the trend of stage four cancers being the first cancer diagnosis on Montserrat.”
Social Services Needs
“We have asked for an increase in funding to social services to support vulnerable persons. We have asked for adult and child safeguarding posts to help us protect vulnerable persons on this island.”
“Social services also needs essential staff. Social services is a department with a very humanitarian team. They are presently overstretched and need additional support in order to continue to function normally.”
“Our nursing homes are maximally full, and this has led to elderly persons in our communities not having adequate care at home. If they are at home without adequate care, then we are putting their lives at risk. Many older persons are also spending long periods in hospital simply because there is not enough money to support them at home. As a result, they are blocking acute beds and increasing the workload of our nurses, who are presently understaffed and really struggling.”
“Social services needs more money so that more people can be hired to look after our older persons at home.”
“We have also asked for more money to pay Golden Years workers, whose salary is presently close to half of that of the Margetson Memorial workers. If we do not improve on this, we are allowing them to remain in impoverished conditions.”
“In closing, Madam Speaker, I would like to say thank you to all persons working on or supporting all three teams—education, health, and social services. Thank you for your hard work and dedication. These are ministries in which outcomes affect us on a very deep level. Health, education, and social services are the foundation of any country. So we live in hope, Madam Speaker, as we await budget talks next month.”
The new government is expected to share its plans for the new fiscal year at the end of March.
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