Health Minister Andrew Green also faced demands for funding from technology businesses and UK experts strongly suggested that the new hospital should be geared towards private facilities for health ‘tourists’ from outside the Island at the annual Institute of Directors Jersey debate.
Asked whether the Island really needed a new hospital or whether it was just ‘political vanity’, Senator Green said a new report issued on Thursday showed that only one non-clinical area of the current hospital was considered ‘fit for purpose’. ‘Every other part is not fit for purpose,’ he said.
The event at the Royal Jersey Showground attracted more than 600 people who each paid £80 to attend the five-hour health and education ‘debate’. As well as Senator Green, the health panel included Health’s chief officer, Julie Garbutt and three experts from the UK.
Asked about the voluntary sector, Senator Green said there were some grants available. ‘We might be able to do a little bit more,’ he added.
John Pinel, the chief executive of the Jersey Voluntary and Community Partnership, said: ‘I think more could be done to recognise what the voluntary sector do.’ He said there was a need for a ‘culture change’, to recognise the value of the sector and give support, ‘not just money, but sustainable funding’.
Mr Pinel said that some organisations had been given funding for a year, but none after that, and were still expected to continue to provide the same services.
Julie Gafoor, of the charity Family Nursing and Home Care, said that there was a ‘huge amount’ of expertise that the profession could offer, but that it was not being utilised, for example in relation to prescribing medication. And Melissa Nobrega of Caring Cooks said that schoolchildren were suffering from lack of nutrition, which was ‘not being dealt with very well’. She said: ‘We are desperate to work with the States, but we are struggling to get into the schools.’
Liz Le Poidevin, the chairman of the Association of Jersey Charities, said that many of the 300 or so members were health related. She said she wanted to see ministers, civil servants and volunteers coming together. ‘I want to know where things join up,’ she said.
Ms Garbutt said she found Mr Pinel’s comments ‘disappointing’ and that there were partnerships already in place, such as Jersey Talking Therapies as well as through Jersey Hospice Care and Silkworth Lodge. And Senator Green said that as national chairman of Headway, ‘no one could be more passionate’ than he was about the voluntary sector.
The minister also faced criticism from Mary O’Keeffe-Burgher, who suggested that a new theatre suite being built in advance of the new hospital was a ‘huge waste of public money’. But Ms Garbutt said the new theatre was designed to be temporary and was the only way that current demands could be met.
Senator Green said that 23 sites for the new hospital had been reviewed and been narrowed down to just two sites. He promised that the public would be told ‘fairly soon’ where the site for the hospital would be.
Fellow panellist Andrew Vallance-Owen, who chairs the Private Healthcare Information Network, suggested there was ‘a big opportunity’ to get an income stream from health tourism, so that people could have a week’s holiday and pay less than in London.
Asked about whether Jersey was a ‘perfect marketplace’ for medical technology, Senator Green said he believed e-health was important, but he did not want to ‘sink public money into an experiment’, particularly because failures were highlighted in the media. ‘That is all your fault,’ he told the audience, ‘because you encourage it.’
