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| PMH chief to be fired |
Candia Dames
Guardian News Editor candia@nasguard.com
Published: Jul 16, 2012
The Public Hospitals Authority (PHA) has decided to cancel the contract of Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) Administrator Coralie Adderley, Minister of Health Dr. Perry Gomez confirmed yesterday. The termination of the contract will come just a few months after the PHA renewed it. While Gomez said the decision to end the contract was made in the interest of the hospital, and the advancement of healthcare in the country, former Minister of Health Dr. Hubert Minnis, who is now leader of the official opposition, expressed outrage over the matter and called it a vindictive act. Minnis claimed Adderley is being fired because Gomez has something personal against her. “She has 18 months left on the contract and they want to terminate with one month’s pay,” Minnis claimed, adding that he does not know Adderley’s political leaning and does not care to know because she is a professional. “She is the only Bahamian board-certified hospital administrator in the public system. She worked with Doctors Hospital. She has worked with PMH for 11 years. “She has no problem with either administration and her assessment has always been excellent with both administrations.” But Gomez strongly denied the claim that the termination is due to personal reasons. “That’s, I guess, rhetoric,” he said of the victimization claim. “There’s nothing personal, it’s all about leadership of the institution.” PHA Managing Director Herbert Brown met with Adderley late last week and advised her of the planned termination, Gomez confirmed. “The minister has no direct authority in the PHA,” Gomez said. “I understand that he met with her.” The minister said PMH needs to move in a new direction. “I think that the institution needs, if you ask me seriously, new leadership, not only in administration, but in physician management,” he told The Nassau Guardian. “The place is crying for new leadership and if we are going to make PMH what it ought to be, we have to try to get leadership of the institution straight in all aspects. There’s nothing more, nothing less.” Asked why the PHA would cancel a contract it renewed just several months ago, Gomez insisted that the hospital is in need of “new and improved direction”. “Ms. Adderly has had three contracts which I am told is the maximum and [one] ended in December of last year. “For a period of time she was on month to month, from January until about April. Sometime in April she got another contract. I’m not sure of the length. The usual thing has been three.” Gomez also said, “I hear a lot of people talking about people with such great qualifications, but qualifications don’t necessarily translate to good leadership.” “Similarly, in medicine, qualifications don’t necessarily make you a good doctor. So it has to be more than qualifications — attitude, the ability to get along with people, caring about people, etc.” Minnis said Adderley has been intimately involved with the Critical Care Block being constructed on the hospital’s grounds, and in the overall redevelopment of PMH. He said she has been on the front line of bringing the country’s healthcare sector into a new technological and modern era. “She is well versed with the concept of the construction of the health bridge to the future, meaning integration of the entire Bahamas,” Minnis said. “She’s also involved intimately in the excellence program so as to improve staff morale, patient care, communication to patients, patient staff communication and general improvement of patient care.” Minnis claimed the government is also trying to force other senior doctors out of the system. “And these are all professionals who don’t look at politics,” he said. “When the government can victimize professionals when will it stop?” Gomez confirmed that additional staff changes were also being made. Speaking of the need for new and improved direction, he said, “It begins with the leadership in the institution; like I said, not only in administration but in physician management of the hospital. It starts at the top.” But Minnis said the government is “sending a message loud and clear that at all cost they would put who they believe supports them 100 percent. But I don’t know her politics. I was not interested in her politics. She is a professional. “This cannot be happening to professionals. When you start moving into the professional class, where do you stop? It shows that they’re not concerned with the healthcare system.” Minnis pledged to fight for professionals being “victimized” by the new government. “I pledge as leader of the Opposition I will not allow any Bahamian, regardless of political opinion, to be victimized or walked upon by any government and I will not allow the PLP to do this,” he said. “I will fight this tooth and nail and if it even means for the Bahamian people to demonstrate I urge all Bahamians, PLPs, FNMs and whomever, the churches, every organization to stand up and stop victimization in any form.” Gomez said Adderley’s last day with the hospital would either be the end of this month or early August. He said no replacement had been chosen as yet. “There are a number of people underneath her; she has two deputies and there are administrators in Freeport and Sandilands that may have been looked at,” Gomez said. |
