Health Minister Nelson Bascome yesterday accused his Opposition counterpart of making a "vicious and unsubstantiated attack" against the Bermuda Hospitals Board over the Norman Palmer case.

The Minister told the House of Assembly that Louise Jackson had "accused staff and management of the Bermuda Hospitals Board of being unprofessional, untrained and uncaring" for the way they dealt with Mr. Palmer both before and after his death last April.

But the Shadow Health Minister hit back last night, saying she had never made such allegations and had only ever tried to make sure that King Edward VII Memorial Hospital was an institution of high standards.

Mr. Bascome spoke out in the wake of a coroner's ruling on Mr. Palmer's death on Thursday. Khamisi Tokunbo found after a six-day inquest held last month that the 57-year-old died of natural causes contributed to by self-neglect.

Mr. Palmer's family have heavily criticised the emergency care he received from KEMH and Mrs. Jackson claimed that he died in "strange circumstances" and could have been saved if a surgical procedure to open his airway had been performed.

But Mr. Tokunbo found no fault with the ambulance crew who went to his home or the ER doctors who treated him on the day he died last April. He concluded that an emergency surgical procedure to allow Mr. Palmer to breathe was performed.

Mr. Bascome gave his condolences to Mr. Palmer's relatives for their pain over his tragic death and said he was breaking a "long, self-imposed and respectful silence" regarding comments made by Mrs. Jackson.

"I have sat quietly for close to a year and endured a vicious and unsubstantiated attack against the Bermuda Hospitals Board by the Shadow Minister for Health," he said.

"We have but one hospital on this Island and I can state that the honourable member and I do agree on one extremely important issue: the services provided by that hospital must be of the highest possible standard."

He said based on Mr. Tokunbo's ruling "it might have proved far better for that member to have awaited the facts as opposed to castigating the good work by our EMTs (emergency medical technicians) and emergency medical staff."

He added: "I must question the motives of that side of the House to have all sat silently whilst their member, without any facts, engaged in a campaign of misinformation which can only serve to erode the confidence of this community in our hospital, despite the best work of the staff."

Mr. Bascome said the tragic situation involving Mr. Palmer, who died in ER after he started suffocating at home in Paget, was not helped by "a respected member of the community who chose not to ignore the lure of scoring cheap and unsubstantiated political points and instead chose to malign an institution that is working very hard to provide first-rate care".

Mrs. Jackson told The Royal Gazette that since the family was planning to seek a judicial review of the Coroner's ruling it would be sub judice to comment on his findings. "I don't think anybody is supposed to be talking about it now," she said.

She added: "All of us think that the services provided by the hospital must be of the highest possible standard and that we can improve on the standards of care.

"I have never said that they are unprofessional, untrained and uncaring. The only thing I have tried to do is to make the hospital, as it's our only acute hospital, an institution of high standards."

She said the case highlighted areas where improvements were needed, particularly in the ambulance service.