CHARLESTOWN, NEVIS, JULY 10TH 2017 – Former Minister of Health in the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP) administration, Mr. Hensley Daniel, has accused his successor, Hon, Mark Brantley, of refusing to install two dialysis unit which arrived in Nevis four years ago.
Several Nevisians have died while the two machines remain on the grounds of Nevis’ Alexandra Hospital.
Mr. Daniel, who was then Minister of Health purchased the units, which consists of two dialysis machines, a water treatment plant, two patient centric chairs, examination room and a nursing station.
“It was secured at a cost of US$214.000 with the Medical University of the Americas in Nevis contributing US$100,000. The Dialysis Unit was assembled in Israel and arrived in Nevis on April 1, 2013,” said Daniel.
The then NRP government left office following the Nevis Island Assembly Elections in January that year.
“Persons who are diabetic and hypertensive are at risk of contracting kidney disease. So I bought the Unit to respond to the increasing incidence of kidney failure. Also, I am aware that there are more than seven hundred diabetics and some 800 hypertensive persons in Nevis. I know that persons suffering from kidney failure have had to travel overseas for medical attention. I felt the urgent need to provide for them to be treated right here in Nevis,” said Daniel.
He said several persons have died from kidney failure since the machines arrived in Nevis and remain mothballed on the hospital grounds.
“It is my settled view that the Minister of Health (Hon. Mark Brantley) has shown callous disregard for the people of Nevis by not installing the Unit. As such, he should have been fired long ago. The people of Nevis must respond with revulsion to this level of stupidity,” said Mr. Daniel, who noted the indifference by the Press, the Chamber of Commerce and Christian Council to the issue.
“Voters in Nevis must send this Minister a clear message that they will not tolerate this vicious attack on the health of fellow Nevisians. If you vote for Mark, you are saying that you do not care about the people who now suffer from kidney failure. If you vote for Mark, you will also be saying that you do not care about your own health,” said Mr. Daniel.
“We must hang the Dialysis Unit around the neck of the Minister of Health. It must drown him politically,” he added.
In a September 7th 2013 statement the Ministry of Health of Health in Nevis, Hon. Mark Brantley welcomed the opening of the Haemodialysis Unit at the Joseph N. France (JNF) Hospital in St. Kitts.
He said that with the introduction of the new Haemodialysis Unit and with Peritoneal dialysis introduced in St. Kitts in 2003, residents of Nevis with permanent renal failure now have two options for dialysis treatment at St. Kitts’ JNF Hospital.
He also admitted that the Ministry of Health on Nevis was in possession of two dialysis machines, which four years after remain on the Alexandra Hospital grounds.
Photo 1 – The container with the two units on the grounds of the Alexandra Hospital in Nevis
Photo 2 – Mr. Hensley Daniel
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