The Government is pressing ahead with plans to implement universal healthcare by next year, MPs were told yesterday.

Kim Wilson, the Minister of Health, said that the Government had committed almost $2 million in this year’s Budget to fund the programme management office — set up last year — to create the new system. Almost half of those funds will cover the cost of consultants.

Ms Wilson was presenting her ministry’s expenditure plans for the coming year.

The ministry has been allocated $200.4 million this year, more than any other ministry, although it falls short of the $212.3 million it spend last year.

The bulk of that — $155 million — will go to the Bermuda Hospitals Board to run the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital and the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute.

In a presentation that lasted 3½ hours, Ms Wilson said: “The Government is committed to strengthening our health system to bring healthy people and healthy communities.

“A key component of this is the multiyear journey towards delivering universal health coverage for the necessary health services and the aim is to ensure that all residents of Bermuda have access to core health services of high quality when they need them without suffering financial hardship.

“With a focus on integrating health services across the continuum of care that is public health, mental health acute and post-acute care and community services, the implementation of UHC will seek to contain healthcare cost as well as employ prevention and health promotion strategies to produce better health outcomes for our island’s population.

“The health system transformation to achieve UHC requires the strategic planning of upcoming projects and ongoing engagement with key stakeholders to ensure decisions and actions impacting UHC are patient-focused and timely.

“For this, there’s an allocation in the ministry’s headquarter budget in the amount of $948,000 to fund the programme management office for delivery of UHC, and a further $988,000 for consultants.

“The PMO is managing co-ordination, implementation, execution and integration of all projects and associated work streams in 2024-25 and beyond. This is to accelerate change towards UHC,” added Ms Wilson.

“The PMO is also supporting the transitional government structure headed by the UHC steering committee, whose purpose is to facilitate the engagement of the many and wide-ranging health system participants through stakeholder working groups and forums.

“The PMO is up and running now with a programme director, communications co-ordinator, two project managers, with two additional project managers starting very shortly.

“The UHC steering committee comprises representatives of several government departments as well as the Bermuda Health Council, BHB, Bermuda Medical Doctors Association, Bermuda First and patient representatives.”

Ms Wilson said that healthcare costs could be cut.

The Government’s two senior homes, Lefroy House and the Sylvia Richardson Care Facility, will receive $5m and $5.95 million, respectively.

Ms Wilson said that demand was outstripping supply and that the costs of running the facilities had increased.

Ms Wilson also noted that savings had been made in many departments by not filling staff vacancies. But she stressed that at the hospital only non-clinical vacancies had not been filled to save costs.

She said that the hospital was working to reduce the length of time patients spend at the facility by improving “patient flow”.

Michael Dunkley, the Shadow Minister of Health, said he supported the minister “in many areas”, but had some concerns.

Describing the ministry as “the engine room of Bermuda”, Mr Dunkley pointed out that, according to the Government, the programme management office set up to establish universal healthcare, had only achieved 40 per cent of its targets last year.

He said: “We know it’s a mammoth project and it comes down to ensuring healthcare for all, but if that office is not established fully yet then maybe work is not being done.”

Mr Dunkley also expressed “disappointment that the Government had underestimated the BHB’s expenses.

He said that in recent years the revised cost had always “overshot” the estimated expenditure by several million dollars.

He said: “I wonder how we can believe that something is going to change fortuitously.”