The Ombudsman’s report on racial tensions at the Hospital makes depressing reading, with both black and white personnel feeling the heat. Among the contributors identified by the Ombudsman are inadequate management practices at the Hospital as well as political interference.
The media will have trouble characterising this report. They’ll focus on the racial hotbuttons while missing the solid recommendations. The Bermuda Sun reports:
Whites interviewed complained that the problems at KEMH were not really about race, “but rather about an insidious, growing, political interference with the BHB that seeps throughout the hospital” …
They believed that the powerful black doctor was the person behind the complaints and that it was his way of getting back at the white power elite who is widely believed to have unfairly denied him entry into the profession years ago ….
Some blacks the ombudsman spoke to believe that black doctors on work permits who are the powerful black doctor’s friends may be targeted by the white medical elite, not because of race, but because they are his friends.
Pretty poisonous stuff. You poke me, I’ll poke you, you poke me, I’ll poke you.
The Ombudsman recommends a number of clinical and management improvements that the BHB should undertake to reduce the “murky areas” where both political intervention and racial friction have grown. All factions need to back off and support the BHB in independently addressing these issues. That includes that “powerful black doctor” and his interfering friends.
Political Tinkering // Nov 13, 2007 at 10:21 pm
[...] a week after a report from the Bermuda Ombudsman highlighted political interference at the Bermuda Hospitals, a new leak has revealed some of the pressures at [...]
Ewart Speak // Feb 25, 2008 at 10:09 am
[...] Indeed, and one of the largest problems identified by the Ombudsman was constant political interference by a “powerful black doctor.” [...]