est. 2007

Barbados Underground

Bringing News and Opinions to the People

Barbados Medical Schools

David
2 minutes
Submitted by Dr. Georgie Porgie
BARBADOS OFFSHORE MEDICAL SCHOOLS, DO WE REALLY NEED THEM?

Elombe Mottley – The Next FIFTY YEARS of PRIDE and INDUSTRY! – may be a progressive thinker to many in Barbados, but in my mind he demonstrates his ignorance as a supreme illiterate in matters of medicine, and medical schools when he suggests that there should be medical schools here…there and everywhere in Barbados.

  1. During the years I hung around offshore Medical schools, there are at least two things that I learned.

    These schools find it difficult to bring in teachers from overseas because of the COST OF PAYING FOR WORK PERMITS FOR TEACHERS FROM OVERSEAS.

  2. Producing the most excellent website, whereupon thy can spew lie upon lie to lure unwary would be students and wannabe doctors to train at these schools.

I would enjoin commenters here to go to the websites of both AUB, and WUB and notice that not only are the websites very poor (suggesting that we are dealing with very poor con artists) but that there are no medical teachers at any of the schools who are Barbadians, and ask why? This at a time where several other offshore schools are now forced to employ locals to teach.

Why is it that WUB (see faculty and staff webpage) have few well qualified teachers listed on their site but yet they list 7 chefs and 7 security guards.

Who is collecting all the money for the WORK PERMITS for these staff members, I wonder?

I would invite you to go to this webpage on the valueMD site and follow the discussion on the thread

new medical school in Barbados in trouble already.

Notice that the valueMD moderator has tried to shut up the poster. Then try to use ctrl and C to try to download anything from this website and note that they have disabled ctrl and C

Then let us start a blog entitled BARBADOS AND OFFSHORE MEDICAL SCHOOLS DO W REALLY NEED THEM? Then let us try to understand and thrash out whether our Government has really sold out our medical education for thirty pieces of silver.

Please also read this thread on valueMD.

WUB website is http://www.wubmed.org/

AUB website is http://www.aubmed.org/

315 responses to “Barbados Medical Schools”

  1. David Avatar
    David

    @GP

    Noted, looks like one of your friends from the Med website followed you over here. You should take note.

  2. GP Avatar
    GP

    PLEASE EXPLAIN DAVID
    MAYBE SOMEONE IS BEING SHORTCHANGED AS IS USUALLY THE CASE AND THEY CANT GET THEIR GROUSE POSTED ON VALUE MD SINCE VALUE MD BLOCKED THE LINK THERE ABOUT THE BU POSTS, SO THEY HAVE COME HERE

    BUT THEY JUST NEED TO SET UP UNDER THEIR OWN NAME OR MONIKER AND SPEW THE BEANS
    ID LOVE TO HEAR IT
    BUT DONT POST AS GEORGIE PORGIE WHEN YOU ARE NOT

  3. David Avatar
    David

    @GP

    An Internet forum is an unwieldy place, people post comments for many reasons; some well intentioned, others malicious/mischievous. The usual MO for those going the malicious route is usually of the vindictive type. Some believe they were wronged by the target of their venom. Not dissimilar to what we often observe in this forum.

  4. GP Avatar
    GP

    WELL I WISH THOSE WHO WERE WRONGED AS PREDICTED, WILL COME FORWARD AND GIVE US THE DETAILS OF THEIR GREIVANCE AND ALSO POST IT ON VALUE MD
    JUST TELL THE TRUTH.
    CALL YOUR SELF THE WEEPING CANE BLADE OR BEDLAM IN BELLEVILLE

  5. David Avatar
    David

    Lancet study: More than 100 million people in India diabetic – BBC News

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-65852551

  6. de pedantic Dribbler Avatar
    de pedantic Dribbler

    Aha @David, the point of that big headline does jump out!

    I recall something which pegged India as surpassing China in the population sweepstakes … so that would put mother India around 1.5 BILLION people I imagine.

    So fah sure 100 million diabetics is indeed a big, BIG deal that brings this matter into stark perspective so realistically for India and Bim we need to address it aggressively.

    India do not have the widespread infrastructure across their vastness to deal with the prolonged issues and fah sure we really dont either despite our tiny size and much lower cases … thus the draconian measures being taken by this admin may be the firm ‘prick’ in the finger needed.

    We will see … but yeah 100 million could lead to a lot of amputations and other dire medical situations … we cant say we haven’t been forewarned!

  7. David Avatar
    David

    @Dee Word

    India is one of those places where medical research is a priority, let us see if there will be a renewed focus on diabetes which is a scourge in our parts.

  8. David Avatar
    David

    Trans fat imports to go
    BARBADOS HAS MADE another defining move to reduce the level of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) currently affecting individuals.
    By December next year, the country will stop the importation of any foods which contain trans fats. It follows the recent decision to introduce a national nutritional policy in schools across the island.
    The move was revealed yesterday by Minister of Health and Wellness, The Most Honourable Senator Dr Jerome Walcott, while giving the opening remarks at the three-day Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Ministerial Conference which started at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.
    He said Government’s latest move was just part of its efforts to help tackle the continued challenges associated with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and associated mental health concerns.
    “Sometimes, due to the size and nature of the commercial actors involved, governments in SIDS face impossible odds in securing regulatory protections to improve health. This is particularly true where government resources and budgets may be dwarfed by the size and scale of multinational companies and foreign commercial actors. Barbados has identified this challenge and is looking at FOPL and ensuring that policies to remove industriallyproduced trans fats from the food supply are in place by December 2024,” he confirmed.
    “Similar considerations were encountered in introducing the local School Nutrition Policy and the adoption of the sugar-sweetened beverage tax and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control,” Walcott said.
    Plan of action
    The three-day conference is being attended by health ministers from SIDS and is geared towards finding an operational plan of action to implement country-specific strategies aimed at reducing NCDs and also dealing with mental health challenges which have surfaced post the COVID-19 pandemic.
    “I trust the deliberations over the next three days to the adoption of a strong and purposeful document that will galvanise the work of Small Island Developing States struggling with NCDs and mental health issues,” the minister said.
    He added that the commitment to the conference shown by the World Health Organisation
    and the Pan American Health Organisation would ensure that no citizen of SIDS dealing with chronic disease was left behind.
    “The issues of NCDs and mental health issues are a threat to national development. Tackling them is an integral part of sustainable development. Their prevention and control remains the most challenging area of public health and requires complex coordinated action across governments.”
    Walcott said NCDs and mental health issues were now “the most challenging public health issues of our time”.
    He added that the statistics surrounding these diseases in SIDS were still not heartening.
    “Significant health challenges remain, with over half of all people with NCDs in SIDS, dying prematurely (before age 70) and with risk factors showing that 28 per cent of adults aged 18 and above do not engage in enough physical activity, 23 per cent smoke tobacco and 56 per cent are overweight, with half of these being obese,” Walcott warned.
    He said mental health conditions remained worrisome, with suicide rates disproportionately high relative to global averages. (BA)

    Source: Nation

  9. GP Avatar
    GP

    I believe that the high incidence of diabetes among Indians is a function of something they put in their food.

    It is like how there was veno-occlusive disease of the liver in the 50’s in Jamaica and probably elsewhere in other islands due to use certain alkaloids in ceresea bush that was used in tea and drinks.

    I will say no more about this at this time. I will just let the jokers talk their rubbish first in response as they are wont to do.

    All the Health Ministers can meet til kingdom come, it will not help, a bit. They are Biochemical illiterates. Biochemistry is the foundation of Nutrition and wellness.

    Reducing importation of trans fats is a start, but they have to consider what trans fats are, how they are made, and if we are not making them ourselves

    I have been talking for a while about preservatives.
    For centuries nations use sugar or salt as the main preservatives for surplus of thier food.

    Today we are using chemicals presumed to be safe because the body makes them in the body in the Kreb’s cycle. However, in that process those compounds are rapidly converted to one another or used as the starter molecules to start other metabolic pathways.

    I believe, therefore, that when we take them in as preservatives that we are taking them in excess.

  10. John McGee Avatar
    John McGee

    Barbados was once a decent nation…has become a backwater. Also- how the bloody hell are these indian and Pinckney schools still operating?

  11. David Avatar
    David

    Kicking ‘health can’ down the road

    By Dr Colin V. Alert
    When faced with a challenging situation, there are two basic options: attempt to tackle the problem, or turn your back on the problem and hope that miraculously the problem will disappear. In political terms this latter is often termed “kicking the can down the road”.
    A recent WhatsApp video circulating in Barbados highlighted a situation where someone had to wait three to four days in the Accident & Emergency Department (A& E) of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) before being seen by a physician.
    The response by the acting Minister of Health was that the official investigation suggested that the average waiting time was closer to 30 hours (“only”!). The acting minister then went on to describe the triage procedures in the A& E department, and also suggested that some people who presented to the A& E would be better served by going to their polyclinics (local health centres).
    (Some) potential patients are quick to point out that, when they attempt to go to their local polyclinics with an acute problem, they are offered an appointment to see a physician in a few weeks (sometimes even longer) time. This has led to a proliferation of emergency clinics in Barbados, but these are mainly fee for service clinics, outside of the pocket range of many people, especially in a population with a growing number of elderly people, many of them reliant on relatively static pensions to survive in an environment where prices are continually rising.
    The result: many people can’t access medical care in a timely manner, their disease states are allowed to incubate and fester, and eventually, when seriously ill and sometimes on death’s door, they are forced to go to the A& E. The medical reports coming out of the A& E are that more and more seriously ill patients are presenting for medical care, leading to overcrowding of both the A& E and also the hospital wards.
    In 2020, the chief executive officer of the QEH noted that the bed occupancy of the medical wards in the QEH was 200 per cent. The annual report of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) in the Ministry of Health for 2006 gives this figure as 120 per cent, showing that this problem has been going on for many years now, and that “kicking the can down the road” in 2006 has, so far, not produced any results that suggest that this process is improving; in fact, most available evidence suggests that things are getting worse. [At this point in the 2006 report, the CMO of the Ministry of Health noted that, “This (bed occupancy) information suggests that secondary and tertiary care management of chronic diseases is consuming an above average proportion of the resources of the QEH. Therefore, new evidence-based strategies for managing these diseases should be implemented with utmost urgency.” Although the CMO used the phrase “with utmost urgency”, to this point 17 years later this has not happened. The can continues to be kicked down (what may possibly be) a very steep road].
    My two-cents suggestion, mentioned over the years and supported by the data from other countries, and also taking into account that good primary care is a lot less expensive than tertiary care, has been we need to focus on improving primary care, that is, the quantity and quality of care available in our polyclinics.
    Medical research
    Our local medical research, such as the Health of the Nation study in 2015 – a national study that evaluated the health of 1 234 adults aged 25 years and over – found that diet and exercise habits were poor, overweight and obesity were rampant, and physicians (in primary care) struggled to control
    hypertension and diabetes in a majority of people who developed these diseases.
    These poor health habits are not treated with cat scan, MRI or X-ray machines, and do not need to be lying down on a hospital bed with a bevy of nurses around you. The complications of these diseases include heart attacks, strokes, renal (kidney) failure, all conditions that must be treated with expensive tests and medications, in a high cost tertiary level institution: our health services is allowing us to generate many patients who end up needing such care.
    So instead of focusing on health promotion and disease prevention and improving the primary care services that our research has shown to be deficient, our health planners have focused on expanding the A& E and emergency services; we lament that we cannot (easily) afford a new stateof the-art bigger and better hospital; we have established a stroke unit at the QEH (with six beds, while in Barbados we average six strokes every four days, so we will have no shortage of people waiting for a bed in this high-tech unit); we have a cardiac suite to cater to the heart-attack-aday that we currently generate; and our ambulatory kidney unit (AKU) costs us millions to run while only being able to treat a fraction of the patients that need dialysis or a transplanted kidney.
    Improved primary care offers us the opportunity to lower (but not completely eliminate) the numbers of patients that need the expensive tertiary care, or that fill up the A& E and our hospital wards.
    The analogy is this: if your tap is leaking and the floor is getting wet, you can either attempt to fix the leaking tap or buy an expensive set of mops to keep the floor dry. Primary care medicine attempts to stop the leak, while tertiary care medicine attempts to mop the floor.
    If one looks at the trend of Barbados’ population growth and Government’s health spending in the period 1980 to 2020, one can see that the recurrent health spending has risen (and continues to rise) at a much faster rate than the population growth in this period. This trend of increased recurrent health spending is occurring while the health situation seems to be getting worse, not better.
    It would take someone with a massive amount of optimism to project that the Government can continue spending on health in the way it has done in the past, and that this will lead to an improved local health situation.
    So it can’t (or shouldn’t) be business as usual in health. Our profile of health illnesses, that is, mainly the non-communicable diseases (NCDs) suggest that we should focus on tackling the issues from the front, we must focus on early diagnosis and early intervention. We cannot build an emergency room and hope to save everyone who comes in with a lifethreatening complication. With our health profile, we cannot sing “Don’t worry, about a thing”, and hope that “Every little thing is going to be all right”. We cannot keep kicking the can down the road.

    https://barbadosunderground.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Wickham_DLP_graph.png

    Source: Nation

  12. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ David
    This is the most mature and coherent analysis of the current medical malaise in Barbados that has been postulated in recent times.
    Dr Alert clearly understands and has articulated what should be obvious to any post high school graduate, …BUT which seems to elude our so called leaders.
    Of course Dr Alert would be familiar with the success of the resources-scarce Cuban medical system – which uses the approach that he suggest, and with fantastic results – not only in preventative care and advanced medicine, but ALSO in world class SPORTS RESULTS in a wide variety of sports.

    But since the doc has a mind of his own, and would not kowtow to known political shiite hounds, we cannot expect to see his wisdom utilized anytime soon in Brassbados….

  13. David Avatar
    David

    @Bush Tea

    A lot of what he wrote has been shared on BU over the years. To be fair.

  14. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    Boss, to your credit, practically EVERYTHING has been shared on BU over the years.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Mostly brassbowlery has been DONE in Brassbados in almost every corresponding case…

  15. John Bee Avatar
    John Bee

    Have any locals heard? AUIS is closing down its medical school?

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