PhRMA, the brand-drug industry trade group, lost three members over a span of five months following the passage of Democrats’ drug pricing reform law last year. How large members navigate their exits could be instructive to other firms making decisions about their continued membership in the future. Much of PhRMA’s revenue comes from company dues, so exits hurt the group’s bottom line.

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The Guyana Police Force (GPF) on Tuesday indicated it had halted all investigations into a 16-year old girl’s allegation that Local Government Minister Nigel Dharamlall raped her at his residence last December. According to the law enforcement agency, that decision was based on advice by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) after the girl last ...

Thirty-four persons of Amerindian descent as well as several activists of the women’s rights organisation, Red Thread, on Tuesday demanded broad-based health, legal and financial support for the 16-year old girl who alleged that she was raped by Local Government Minister Nigel Dharamlall. “Apolitical coordination of support for the child, with Indigenous groups and communities ...

A 12-member humanitarian medical mission from Palestine is currently offering its services at the General Hospital in St George’s

View the full post Palestine medical team on one-week mission  on NOW Grenada.

The exit is the group’s third in five months, as AbbVie exited PhRMA in December and Teva Pharmaceuticals left in February.

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By Jenique Belgrave

Former Prime Minister Freundel Stuart is not in favor of any plan to relocate Government Headquarters from Bay Street to make room for any future tourism development.

He made this clear while speaking on the current administration’s decision to move the Geriatric Hospital on Beckles Road to the Botanical Gardens in Waterford, St Michael.

“I passed where we are going to have the new Geriatric Hospital so that we can release the land in Beckles Road to private investment. When I was Prime Minister, some people came to Barbados telling me that where Government Headquarters is would be good for tourism development and that the Prime Minister’s office should be moved up to Ilaro Court.

“I said ‘I don’t have any problem with that suggestion, just come back and tell me when the White House is going to be moved in the United States; come back and tell me when Number 10 Downing Street is going to be moved and when 28 Sussex Drive In Canada will be moved and where’. I haven’t heard from any of them since,” he stated.

Saying the island once had the belief that the achievements of its people are important and in need of protection, the former leader of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) lamented that now “all life in Barbados today is about transactions” with no concern being given to the societal impact. 

“They do not discuss the social implications of anything going on in Barbados. It is just the bottomline, what the transaction will yield and what it will yield for certain people’s pockets,” he charged.

Speaking at the DLP’s City branch meeting at Baxter’s Road over the weekend, Stuart said the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) is failing both residential and commercial Bridgetown. He said that since the current administration came into power there has been no transformation of The City either for those who live there or who work there.

The former prime minister pointed out that while Bridgetown was a bustling hub of commercial activity for 69 years, this has declined significantly over the past decade and that the current government has done little to address it.

Commenting on the residential areas in the capital however, he acknowledged that these have not been given any attention for decades.

“Whenever there is upheaval, residential Bridgetown is not regarded as being deserving of economic attention,” he said, while pointing out that several of its communities including Greenfield, New Orleans, Nelson Street and Chapman Lane are in serious need of development.

“The people in Nelson Street do not want any open space. They want proper housing, proper roads, access to the services and the amenities that people in other areas in Barbados have. People in Greenfield want that, in Chapman Lane and the Orleans want that. Residential Bridgetown has been ignored for the last 77 years,” he said, while pointing out that Barbados could not be developed without its main town.

Stuart told the meeting that now is the time to develop forward-thinking policies to take the nation further.

“We also have to formulate policies to carry Barbados into the future. I do not think that we can credibly formulate any policy to carry Barbados into the future, unless we have policies for residential Bridgetown because for too many years they have been the Cinderellas in City politics, stereotyped as the criminal element…and we cannot credibly come back to the people of Barbados unless we have a policy to rehabilitate residential Bridgetown.”  

jeniquebelgrave@barbadostoday.bb

The post Former PM not supporting shifting Bay Street offices; bemoans lack of concern for societal impact appeared first on Barbados Today.

By Shamar Blunt

Former acting Director of Medical Services at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), Dr Clyde Cave believes that the facility has not changed sufficiently with the times to be able to help interns cope with their workload.
“The duties of ‘on-call’ doctors in many departments at the QEH have evolved over the past decades. The workload is now closer to a full shift than to being available for a few emergencies,” Dr Cave explained.
“The system has not effectively responded to this, I think in large part because it would be expensive to hire more doctors to accomplish the same work that is being done now. Of course, this false economy is at the expense of quality and working conditions.”
His comments came in response to recent calls by Government Senator Dr Crystal Haynes and consultant physician at the QEH and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of West Indies Cave Hill Campus Dr Kenneth Connell, for the practice of having junior doctors working more than 30 hours per shift to be abolished.
Dr Cave, who was also the former Internship Coordinator at the QEH, told Barbados TODAY that though the institution has changed over the years to better meet the healthcare needs of Barbadians, the system has not responded effectively to better manage the duties of the young doctors.
He also explained that the training hours for interns have also increased over the years in keeping with the demands of the healthcare industry.
“For interns, their apprenticeship is more than just a matter of hours of duty, though that is important too. Mentorship, continuity of care, experience, acquisition of expertise and development of clinical judgment are essential to their professional growth to be eligible for full registration by the Medical Council of Barbados,” noted the respected paediatric consultant.
Dr Clyde stressed however, that simply hiring more doctors will not be enough. Instead, the entire system needs to be re-examined to be able to promote a “culture of patient-centred efficiency” at the healthcare institution.
“The solution, as I see it, is beyond just extra posts, though that is clearly needed. All functions at the hospital would have to operate beyond 8 – 4, and a culture of patient-centred efficiency be promoted. This would entail review and possible reassignment of traditional medical chores with appropriate support from technology and an expanded healthcare team.”
shamarblunt@barbadostoday.bb

The post Patient-centred approach needed at QEH appeared first on Barbados Today.

An Independent Senator who works at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) claims there has been little to no improvement in patient care at the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department since the multi-million-dollar upgrade.
In fact, ENT specialist Dr Christopher Maynard said that far from getting better with the $11 million expansion, the situation appears to be worse for some patients seeking assistance there.
“The A&E was supposed to have been expanded and the project was supposed to be finished and the people of this country were supposed to be treated in a better facility and more efficiently. One can’t question whether it is a better facility, but it’s certainly not more efficient. Some would argue it is worse,” he charged in the Upper Chamber on Wednesday as the debate on the Appropriations Bill, 2023 continued.
Senator Maynard noted that with an additional $5.2 million to be spent to complete the refurbishment, improving how the department functions is important because without that, “you would have created a larger, spacious, more comfortable A&E for people to wait in for longer times and have worse outcomes”.
“The budget given for the A&E department by the then Minister has now been increased by 50 per cent, give or take a couple of hundred thousand. It is amazing that you’ve had to increase the budget for a project by 50 per cent in a tertiary care institution, and you still can’t deliver. Something’s really wrong…. Things are worse than they were before. We need change and we have to fix it,” he contended.
Dr Maynard also questioned whether there had been a “real facts and figures” assessment of outcomes in several departments that had been assigned additional funds.
In that regard, the doctor queried “whether the waiting lists are generally getting shorter and whether productivity is genuinely increasing”.
He took issue with the claim made by Senator Dr Crystal Haynes, during the debate on Tuesday, that the backlog of cataract surgeries had been cleared.
“I challenge that because every week, I get calls from people who dropped off the waiting list. So you can say you have cleared the list of the people who are listed but there are a large number of persons in this country who are almost blind because they have cataracts, and while they may have gone for surgeries during COVID, they have dropped off the map and they haven’t been coming because they are terrified and for various reasons they didn’t come, so don’t be lulled into a sense of security that you have fixed the problem,” Dr Maynard said.
He acknowledged, however, that there was no “easy fix” to the situation at the QEH and stressed that “leadership is important”.
“If you have 2 000-plus people under one roof and do not have the right leadership, you have problems and the people who you treat will have worse problems. So, I call on those in charge to stop the experiment and make a change and fix it. It requires some hard, harsh decisions. It requires that workers of all sorts – lowest paid workers and the highest paid workers – have to improve their productivity, not just turn up to work, and they have to be assessed without fear,” the Independent Senator said.
(JB)

The post Senator says situation in A&E “worse than before” upgrades appeared first on Barbados Today.

Despite the naysayers, interest in Barbados’ medicinal cannabis industry is high and the island’s first therapeutic facility is on course to open in the coming year, the head of the Barbados Medicinal Cannabis Licensing Authority (BMCLA) has disclosed.
The BMCLA’s Acting Chief Executive Officer Senator Shanika Roberts-Odle said on Tuesday that additional training will also be made available to Barbadians who want in on the industry.
She was speaking on the Appropriation Bill, 2023 in the Upper House when she highlighted the progress made in issuing licences in an industry that she said the Government is pursuing as an economic contributor and also to provide medicine that can bring relief to the suffering of Barbadians.
In addition to the initial two licensees representing nine approved and eight issued licences, an additional six licensees and 10 licences have been approved.
“That is progress in this country in an industry where they said no one would be interested; in an industry where they said we would never be able to make inroads. We are making them,” the BMCLA boss said. “2023-2024 will see us having our first therapeutic facility opened in this country. We already have our first working medicinal cannabis farm up and running.”
She said the BMCLA has also made progress in training, research and development, and reported that the agency’s free, three-term cannabis crash course programme, which is now in its second term, has been well received.
“I am happy to say that it has not just been well subscribed, it has been oversubscribed,” she said.
“And term three of that programme, we are working with the University of the West Indies who, in fact, has one of their own training programmes as it relates to training doctors on the use of medicinal cannabis in the treatment of their patients.”
The Government Senator disclosed that the BMCLA has created a training programme “that would give the best opportunity to Barbadians who want to be involved in that industry”.
“I’m happy to say that we have finally reached an agreement with one of the major educational institutions in this country – which will be announced in the coming two months – to carry out that training for Barbadians to allow them to be able to understand where the international requirements lie and to be able to give them a qualification that they can’t just use in Barbados, they can’t just use in the region, that they can go internationally and be able to present themselves as well studied, well learned and qualified,” she added.
In her contribution which focused on the work of the Ministry of Agriculture, Senator Roberts-Odle sought to dispel the notion that licences to get a foot in the industry are not affordable.
The BMCLA issues licences across several categories and types, under which licensees can cultivate, transport, process, sell, import, export, research and develop medicinal cannabis and medicinal cannabis products.
The authority’s CEO pointed out that licences are valid for five years – which she suggested is longer than in other parts of the world – and payment plans were offered.
“I would argue that I have not seen anywhere else that will allow you to pay on a payment plan. We allow our licensees to give us 60 per cent of the cost of their licence upfront and to pay the remainder over the next three years,” she explained.
For example, Senator Roberts-Odle said, for a tier one licence which costs $29 700, a payment of $17 820 is made up front and the remainder is due over three years.
“You can pay that on a yearly basis which is $3 960, or you can pay that on a monthly basis which is $330. That’s a Courts bill,” she asserted.
(DP)

The post First local medicinal cannabis therapeutic facility coming appeared first on Barbados Today.

Even as Shadow Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Roysdale Forde said political parties’ headquarters were untouchable, Local Government and Regional Development Minister Nigel Dharamlall said the building that housed the People’s National Congress Reform’s (PNCR) office in Lethem has been earmarked for a health care facility. “The location of this site is slated ...