Senators yesterday approved a bill setting up the Bermuda Health Council, but the measure came down to a vote after objections from the Opposition party members.

The Bermuda Health Council Act 2004 provides for a co-ordinating body for the Island's health care services and would need a series of regulations to make it operational.

"Without this necessary co-ordination and control of competing interests, efforts at cost containment are ineffective and health care costs continue to escalate," said Government Senator Walter Roban who introduced the legislation.

But United Bermuda Party Senator Leonard Santucci demanded to know what the Council would end up costing the taxpayer, and Sen. Roban's response in which he referred to the Council as an "evolving" body served only to firm up the UBP's objections.

"We are counting the costs," said Sen. Santucci in explaining his party's "no" vote.

Independent Senators sided with the Government which won the day in an eight to three vote.

The Council will have wide ranging functions, including monitoring health care services costs, utilisation and performance, promoting wellness programs, arbitration of disputes in the healthcare industry and making policy recommendations.

"One of the first tasks of the Council will be to define essential health services and how we ensure their delivery," Sen. Roban said.

"Essential health services will be different in each community and will be dependent on population size, need and demographics, including location and ease of access to services elsewhere.

"The Bermuda Health Council will identify the range of health services that are essential for Bermuda. This step is critical for ensuring, as a first, that the residents of Bermuda have all the services necessary to meet their needs.

"It is also a pre-requisite to ensuring that essential services are available and accessible at appropriate costs to all segments of the Bermuda population."

Centralised data collection ? to establish performance benchmarks, and gauge the health of the public ? will be one of the Council's major activities, the Senator continued.

The Council will also be concerned with accreditation of health care services and making sure that the industry's professionals keep updating their skills.

Sen. Roban promised that the Council will not simply be another layer of bureaucracy that duplicates functions already being performed.

"The infrastructure already exists and it is the intent to have the Health Insurance Commission evolve into the Bermuda Health Council," he said.

Civil servants will carry out the Council's monitoring and inspection functions, while the Council will take over the functions of the Health Insurance Commission, the Senator explained.

Independent Senator Walywyn Hughes was broadly supportive of the bill, but suggested that it may be too ambitious in its scope.

"It's very hard to ensure things unless you are in complete control of them. It's very hard to ensure the provision of health services," he said."It's one thing to promote and encourage, it's something else to ensure."

And he wondered how the Council would regulate the price of drugs. "The scope seems to be written with a cavalier hand without much thought of how it's going to be done."

Senator Carol Bassett, also an independent, said that the measures were welcomed by her (insurance) industry, which has had to perform many of the Council's functions by default.

And Senate president Alf Oughton who chaired the committee which recommended the Council in the mid 1990s said that the measures were better late than never.

"It's taken eight years, the efforts of two governments and in excess of $3 million just to go around the full circle to come back where we started," he said.

Sen. Santucci said his party was worried that the Council may become another layer of bureaucracy and that the Bermuda Hospital's Board would not be sufficiently represented.

But his concerns rounded on the Council's impact on the public purse. "They have the tendency of throwing away millions of dollars at the stroke of the pen, so we are obligated to count the costs."