Aren’t Cuban doctors some uh the best in the world. Yuh mean nothing ain’t rub off on the bajans that going there.

These UWI doctors ain’t easy. These bad boys and girls do whatever they please.

We pay duh fees, at UWEE, and duh turn round and rob we.

The President of BAMP has an axe to grind, but who does wants to grind it with. It is unfortunate that he has made so mny blunders to cause the medical profession so much embarrassment. He is as pathetic leader and believes that he is a law unto himself. Try calling BAMP to obtain infromation about doctors and tell me what response you ge

He needs to explain why the Junior Doctors joined the NUPW. He needs to explain why AMP cant get a quoron for its AGM the first time it is called. He need to explain why no one wants to take up the mantle of the organisation.

Dr. Chase has even discriminated against the professional qualification gained in England. I wonder if he is a competent doctor. We spent so much money to give people like him the basic qualifaction, and in some instances the professional qualifiaction and all they do is rip off the barbadian public and treat them with disrepect.

Often times this is the response you get to doctors trained in ‘non traditional’ jurisdictions, Mexico and Venezuela are good examples.re good examples.

In Canada, it is close to impossible for an immigrant doctor to attain permission to practice. The medical lobby is almost impervious, inspite of the fact that 30% of DRs are going to retire within 5yrs. Canadian trained DRs are so convinced of their superiority that they dont even permit DRs trained in the UK,Australia,Sth Africa, Malaysia, US etc even though the US does accept from many countries.

The question here is whether Dr Chase is being intellectually honest and basing his conclusion on hard info or like the Canadians just keen to protect turf at all cost? He maybe right that the Cuban medical education is below acceptable but where is his proof?

If Cuban medical training, and Cuban doctors are so bad, can somebody explain to me (in real simple language) how come Cuba’s life expectancy is better than Barbados’

Cuba: 78.3 All; 76.2 Men; 80.4 women
Barbados: 77.3 All; 74.4 men; 79.8 women

And I’ve know a friend who had completed 40% of the course work at the University of Toronto and applied for admission to UWI and UWI said “we don’t recognize course work from any other university, you have to start from the beginning again”

Meanwhile U of T graduates were teaching at all 3 UWI campuses.

Sometimes we Bajans too full o’ we self.

We pretend that we can afford to throw away perfectly good foreign educations.

But really we are a buncha poor great poppets.

Oh and my 1989 doctor is still practising, still providing medical training for UWI’s medical students.

Does this issue have the potential to become a diplomatic matter? Certainly there is room for the Cuban Ambassador to get involved. The integrity of its vaunted health delivery system is under threat. Did Dr. Chase understand the ramification of his opinion once publicized?

The problem is. there are two different systems and cultures and therefore, the remedial examination is to fill that bridge. Docors from the non-tradittinal universities are required to write and pass the CAMC examination.

The problem is, the arrogance dispalyed by some of the doctors in the system who discriminated against the cuban trained doctors, from the outset they believe that they will fail the examiniantion because of the treatement they receive.

In some instances, the entrance requirement to enter the cuban systems is lower than uwi,you can enter the system with o levles or cxc and not the A level like at uwi, but does it mean that those entereing the system in cuba has less ability? point to ponder. The first batch of cubans trained doctors were not treated properly and they jet off to other caribbean countries where they have been accepted. Perhpas, UWI needs to re-visit its approach to dealing with the said doctors or the Clement Payne Foundation needs to stop accepting the scholarships if on return, they cannnot parastice in Barbados.

Anybody knowing and having to deal will Dr. Chase would recogniize that he is short on tact and intellect. One wonders how he got to become a consultant. His intellectual shortage was glaring when he had the interview with the journalist about two or three weeks ago. When he compared the pay of conultants in barbados, with those in england and not the caribbean. He failed to cost the priveleges that the consultants have as well as the gratuity payment they receive at the end of their contract. Another point where he stated that insurance for consultants was as high as 65 000 a year. What he did not say is that the insurance in this category is for surgeoans and O&G and that it was on a sliding scale based on the the number of patients you would see during the period. Again, his non tact was evident when he said that persons can complain to the Minister. What does he expect, if patients are not being treated fairly, shouldnt they complain. Perhaps if the consultants use to do their job fairly, there would not be need for such complaints. When people are sick they want empathy and want the Alma Ata principles to be adhered to ;access and equal treatment to health care.

I am told that doctors are embarrased about how he has handles their issues taking a confrontational appoach and always speking out of term. I am sure that when he emailed his thoughts to his collaegues that he thought that it would have been just swept under the table. Please note that i am in favour of ensuring that we maitaned a standard to prstice in barbados, but it must not be selective.

@balance

Was it not reported in the press that there was likely to be an out of court settlement likely between Ishmael and the QEH?

On the other matter linking Inniss to a porn website BU cannot shed any light on it at this stage. Will continue to work our sources on it.

@Just only asking

You seem to have a personal thing going on with the goodly President?

@David

you got it wrong, he does not operate in a professional manner, his decsions are not objective and he does notr listen to reason, it is his way and by the way, i can tell you that he is supposed to be a distant relative. You know how the ladies in the family do, they always search out the family.

Until he operates from a braoder perpsective, he will not gain the respect of barbadians. Can you contradict anything that i have said. I can say a lot more, but i wont.

I want to see BAMP recognize that it members have a socail responsibility to deliver quality health care to all strata of this society. Not selective health care to certain people. Why did BAMP oppose operecion milago when they know full well that there was a back log of eye operations to be done. A lady who sells paper in Haggat Hall told me she waited for years for an opeartion here and went to cuba and she is happy with the results.

Is there not a difference between the delivery of health care in a country and the medical training supplied? In fact, I do not understand BAMP to be saying that the teaching is poor, merely that the students or most of them are not up to scratch.

We should also be wary of those students who spend several years at Cave Hill trying to pass a chemistry degree and then their parents pay for them to get into St Augustine to do medicine because on the qualifications alone they would not be allowed in. Medicine is not like other disciplines because persons’ lives are at stake. When mistakes are made families are disrupted children loses their parents, parents lose their children and the hospital/government i.e. all of us are sued .

Quoting watching “If those students are not up to scratch do we allow persons outside of the medical fraternity say that they should be practicing”

If they are not up to scratch, then we should bring them up to scratch.

People do not stop learning when they exit medical school (or any school)

Quoting Georgie Porgie “However, interesting contribution from Random Thoughts”

Georgie Porgie you know that it should not take multiple visits over many months to diagnose Graves disease especially if the pateint presents with weight loss and extreme tiredness, and a sibling and 6 cousins have already been diagnosed.

But the doctor never asked anything about family history.

Then again a doctor in the great white north took 9 weeks and multiple visits to diagnose mononucleosis, and had to depend on a state/provincial lab to make the diagnosis for him, even though the patient had already lost 27 pounds in those 9 weeks and was extremely tired.

There are excellent doctors, good doctors, those who are barely making it, and biss poor doctors and as a patient I haven’t seen the research to help me determine which is which.

Too many doctors seem afraid to ask their patients questions, and too many don’t seem to feel that they MUST LISTEN to the patient.

I do not think it is the calibre of training that is the problem, it is the calibre of student that is the problem. NOT EVERYONE WHO DESIRES TO BE A DOCTOR OR WHOSE PARENTS FEEL THAT THEY DO MEDICINE should be in medicine. Some are just not cut out to be doctors and we all can site several examples. Some just do not have the wherewithall to be a doctor ,some donot like to touch patients, some are not people-oriented and some just cannot apply what they learn in the class room.

One cannot reasonably question the intellect of anyone who negotiates the path to and through medical school. One cannot have too many doubts about the healthcare indices of the Cuban people. They are superior to Barbados and the rest of the English speaking Caribbean. Barbados has an unacceptably high incidence of obesity and all the conditions associated with it. Doctors, educated at the expense of the voters, have a meeting at the time when patients may have taken time off for a visit. There is something awfully wrong with this scenario. Barbados spends a significant per capita sum on the health of its people. Is it correct to spend the bulk of this in tertiary and end of life care? Should more be spent on primary and preventive care? Is the Cuban model totally wrong or do we have something to learn from them? Can they learn from the UWI model or is the fact that some of the Cuban physicians happen to be Barbadian, helpful. The prevailing winds in Barbados (and the Caribbean) seem to be carrying the healthcare ship in the wrong direction. It is time to tack with ears open to advice from the passengers. There is sense on all the sides that I’ve read. There is also some outdated, selfish and destructive greed.

@Francis

There is something awfully wrong with this scenario. Barbados spends a significant per capita sum on the health of its people. Is it correct to spend the bulk of this in tertiary and end of life care? Should more be spent on primary and preventive care?

A salient point.

One more point.

Medicine is so vast that if anyone wants you to fail, they can make that possible.

Let’s be careful how we insult Cuban doctors.

perhaps,joa, bamp might have opposed operation milagro because of a desire to manipulate the opthamological market but i am reliably informed that cubans wait excessively long for certain aspects of health care too particularly surgical because a majority of the doctors are despatched abroad to promote cuba as a caring countrytherby boosting the image of fidel and the regime as well.

@Georgie Porgie | July 12, 2011 at 3:01 PM |

“CLEARLY YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THAT MEDICAL TRAINING VARIES fROM COUNTRY TO COUNTRY’

what utter crap… that has no bearance on if they choose to practice in Barbados…don’t they have to do a test here then in order to practice here?… i would know… i have a relative who was a trained medical practitioner elsewhere…highly respected in his country…he did his test..(of which u would be aware, so don’t even pretend) now he’s working in one of the polyclinics.. why don’t they criticize the UWI trained doctors that act like pure fools at QEH.. why don’t u tell them to take a look at the way the doctors from Nigeria and India who work there treat their patients? members of BAMP have a lot to learn. i for one am glad that donville inniss is not a doctor to show them, he does not give a damn about their infantile beliefs. I could not believe that colin chase could say to the print media that donville inniss cannot dictate to them when to hold a meeting. Why would BAMP hold a meeting at the high time patients would be seeking attention? why don’t they take a leaf out of the books of Dr. Olu..who works at the Black Rock polyclinic? or Dr Abucoa who works at either randal phillips or edgar cochrane (not sure which)?

u GP seem to think that u have to be a doctor to speak on certain issues. u could only be an ingrunt poppit. don’t bother returning here to practice please…stay where u are. i too heard mickey walrond tell UWI freshers and would be’s… not to go Cuba to train, that even tho Cuba has a highly respected medical faculty, that where the barbadians would be doing their training was not up to par. he suggested that parents pay to do it at UWI-cave hill even tho the cost was expensive. i could only assumed that he was looking after his own interest.

Another thing too, i do not understand why those students trained in Cuba are even wasting their time here begging for acceptance when they can and will get jobs in any other country. America and England wants them.. i know what i am talking about. along with that, the pay and benefits much better than here.

.smooth chocolate let usput aside the snide remarks, you have your views and i have mine.for your information, in july 1960, in response to cuba’s revolutionary govt’s seizure of U.S properties; the U.S.A. REDUCED THE CUBAN import quota of brown sugar to 700.000 tons under the SUGAR ACT of 1948.theSOVIET UNION agreed to purchase the sugar instead as CUBA’S new govt continued to nationalize american businesses and privately owned companies.. in response to cuba’s alignment with the soviet union during the COLD WAR PRES KENNEDY widened the scope of the trade restrictions in 1962.following the cuban missile crisis, kennedy improved travel restrictions in 1963 and in response to cuba hosting nuclear weapons, cuban assets in the U.S.A were frozen under the TRADING WITH THE ENEMY ACT in JULY 1963. AND MR SMOOTH CHOCOLATE, what is wrong with the usa govt implementing policies to protect the rights of its citizens interests? are we not imploring our own govt to explore avenues to punish trinidad for not allowing red jet to fly into trinidad; are we not seeking to protect our borders from the influx of guyanese? you may wish to know that despite the existence of the embargo , the U.S.A is the fifth largest exporter to cuba(6.6 of CUBA’S imports are from the U.S.A. by the way, cuba was doing great things in medicine long before mr castro came to power.

i am suspicious of the motives of china. they are trying to establish dominance in the world and are prepared to offer handouts to mendicant countries and spend appropriately note appropriately to obtain prominence; but that is world politics. the U.S.A in their heyday supported many corrupt regimes as long their policies were in american interests.my beef is the proliferation of chinese and chinese businesses in barbados overnight seemingly without the hassle guyanese and jamaica brethren have to endure.how do they get their goods which they sell in the stores? do they travers the walls of customs/ i am curious.

It is always easier to deal with “views” and “feelings” while avoiding the facts or perhaps even seeking them out. Barbados has one of the highest rates of obesity in the Caribbean. It also has a very high incidence of amputations. The former (obesity) has association with the prevalence of Diabetes and other morbidities. If one is to believe current information, the major associate of obesity is overeating. Recent publications in the local press have paid a passing acknowledgement to Diabetes and Obesity as one well known Barbadian physician has pledged to exercise more and the other spoke glowingly as he referenced the receipt of articles which allowed the staging of peripheral neuropathy…a complication of already established Diabetes Mellitus.
I am not suggesting that there is unimportance to the recognition and treatment of diseases and their complications. I am sayiing that the prevention and postponement of health morbidities is not only better for the individual but is far less expensive and leads to benefits not proximally related to the absence of disease. The concept of Social and Preventive Medicine is not new and has progressed far beyond the quest for mosquito larvae and worms. The late Professor Kenneth Standard, a Barbadian, was instrumental in helping to adjust this view of Public Health. There were and continue to be many others. Resistance to some change is most malignant among those who profit immensely…the so called food industry and their shills and those whose business includes the delivery of sickness care. Consumers must recognize and act on this
The recent issue that has put the leadership of the BAMP, Cuban doctors and the Public into a bit of conflict has brought a Caribbean abscess to a head in a different location. CARICOM groups and those with other synonyms including the WICB (of control) come to mind. It is a wonderful moment for a needed discussion with emotion being a small component. The Cuban reference may be compared to a skull threatening bouncer delivered with some extra wrist action. It’s not the end of the match but an opportunity for discussion beyond that between the batsman and bowler.
There was a time when the Surgeon either came from or did his training in England. She may now be from a few other places. Latin and Greek were once more of a requisite in many schools. Is it not time that we conduct a review of our Sicknesscare system with attention to our population’s needs? Cuba may have something to offer by example. Mr Clarke, Mr Commissiong and the late Ichael Tafari have been reliable sources on socio-political issues in the past. The spectrum of discussion should not be blinkered.