diagnostic facilities and ending Cable and Wireless' communications monopoly.

Speaking about the Public Health Amendment Act, senators agreed the cost of health care was astronomically high in Bermuda and pledged their support as the Island tries to wrestle with the problem.

President of the Senate and chairman of the Health Care Review in 1996, Sen.

Alf Oughton told his colleagues of a "classic example'' of the system's faults.

He said he bought a medical prescription on April 28 for $21.25, but just last week it cost some $35.

"That's an increase of 68 percent,'' Sen. Oughton said. "I went down there to get my prescription refilled.'' Sen. Oughton said often the cost of getting a particular medical test done is high because certain parts of King Edward VII Memorial Hospital subsidise other divisions.

He cited the Intensive Care Unit where if it were to pay for itself, patients would have to pay up to four times more for special emergency care.

Government Senate Leader Milton Scott said Government subsidises the hospital with $60 million in each year's budget or about $1,000 per person.

He said United Bermuda Party Government just "didn't get it right'', adding that when the public acquire diagnostic services they should be assured the Government-approved facility has up-to-date equipment and well-trained personnel versed in the latest techniques.

Some insurers, Mr. Scott said, had used "discriminatory practices'' in ignoring certain companies that provide diagnostic services and rely on the hospital or others.

Sen. Calvin Smith (PLP) said the Act would get "teeth'' when regulations are produced in the near future.

Sen. Michael Scott (PLP), Upper House spokesman for Telecommunications, said the Cable and Wireless Bermuda Ltd. Act had been tabled to "give effect to'' an agreement between Government and the company as the country deregulates.

The Act allows C&W to be exempt from taxes on the transfer of assets and the movement out of Bermuda and the movement off Island of profits from the sale of assets without being hit by exchange controls.

The only dissent about the Act came when Opposition Senator Maxwell Burgess questioned how long the company would take to publish whether the Act had been made operative.