Rising healthcare costs have been highlighted repeatedly during the past five years, with the health and seniors minister warning last year that they had risen to “unsustainable levels”.

During the Health Action Plan launch in January 2016, Jeanne Atherden reiterated that curbing healthcare costs was a priority along with reducing rates of chronic, non-communicable diseases.

Earlier this year, she revealed that the latest National Health Accounts report, showed that health spending began to level off in 2011 and went down by 1.1 per cent in 2015 “for the first time on record”.

She made the announcement as the Health (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2017 was debated in the House of Assembly. The bill, which was later passed by the Senate, lowered the Standard Premium Rate by $4.07 per month, while also increasing coverage for kidney transplants and decreasing the cost of dialysis. It also introduced a change requiring the Health Council to recommend fees to the minister for all standard health benefits.

And the Bermuda Health Council’s new fee schedule, which saw cuts to diagnostic imaging service reimbursements, came into effect on June 1. These cuts were decried by private physicians, with Ewart Brown, the former premier, saying the move was politically motivated and aimed at crippling his clinics. And J.J. Soares, of Hamilton Medical Centre, revealed in an advertisement in this paper that open MRI and CT scanning at his planned walk-in centre would likely have to be scrapped because of the “unreasonable” cuts.

Meanwhile, 2016 featured the Bermuda Health Council Amendment Act, which was met with concern by the Opposition as well as some local doctors, deferred for clarification. Doctors later branded the reworked legislative proposals aimed at regulating private healthcare providers as “heavy handed”, saying the reform measures unfairly targeted their profession.

The year before, the Health Insurance Amendment Bill 2015, which provided for the naming of employers who had allowed their workers’ health insurance to lapse, was passed with support from both parties. And on July 31, 2015, new laws governing the sale and advertisement of tobacco products came into force despite pushback from retailers, who deemed them “draconian”. After repeated calls, ambulance services were also instated at both ends of the island in 2015.

Government, however, was forced to do a U-turn on a proposal for more stringent coverage of mammography following a public outcry, which saw protesters hang bras outside Cabinet in June 2015.

That same day saw Opposition MPs Kim Wilson, then the shadow health minister, and former PLP leader Marc Bean criticise the 12 per cent increase to the Standard Health Benefit, at a time when the cost of living was continually rising and healthcare costs were already “exorbitant”.

In 2014, legislation allowing the use of cannabis-derived medicines won approval in the House although the Opposition criticising the new law as not going far enough.

Meanwhile, the proposed closure of the Lamb Foggo Urgent Care Centre in 2013 was also met with protest, leading to the Government overruling the decision by hospital bosses.

That year also featured the launch of the Steps to a Well Bermuda survey, which assessed more than 2,600 households to gauge health issues and help develop a chronic disease management strategy.

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