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Feb 12 - GHA Complaints Board Dispute – Government Claims GSD is Inconsistent in its Arguments

govt logoIn response to the GSD’s most recent statement on the Government’s GHA Complaints board announcement, No.6 Convent Place noted that GSD spokesperson Mrs Isobel Ellul-Hammond ‘seems to think that appointees of the present Government are not capable of independent and conscientious thought but persons that the GSD appointed, when in power, are’.

Referring to an interview carried out by GBC with Mrs. Ellul-Hammond, the statement adds, ‘the allegations made by Mrs. Hammond about one of the appointees is possibly slanderous and the suggestion that these persons, or the individual boards selected by the Ombudsman, will in any way discriminate on political grounds is scandalous. All the appointees are respectable members of the public who will be just and fair in their deliberations.’

It continues, ‘Mrs Hammond seems to conveniently forget how she was first involved with the GHA. The crass hypocrisy in the GSD view on appointments to boards is clearly demonstrated by the fact that, in 2007, the GSD Health Minister Yvette Delagua dismissed Dr John Cortes from the board of the Health Authority, after 16 years' dedicated service as an independent member, at a time when he was in no way active in politics, and replaced him with Mrs Hammond herself, soon to become a GSD candidate. At the same time, a former GSD appointee to the Board, Edwin Reyes, left the Board and became a GSD Minister and that was a policy making board, not a clinical review panel where politics are irrelevant.

The GSD's attempt at justifying their stance by criticising the parties in Government for inconsistency is also totally flawed. If they held, when in Government, that the system was fair no matter who they appointed, how can they now say it is NOT fair because of who is appointed?’

The Government insists that these appointments will be for a short period only. ‘They have come about due to the fact that the old panel expired at the end of last year. The Government, as stated in its Manifesto, is not satisfied with the current complaints system and is working on a review that will involve the office of the Ombudsman more directly’.