ULP revolutionised Health Care, says Opposition Leader Ralph Gonsalves

Leader of the opposition Unity Labour Party, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, praising a recent experience at the Byera Health Center, said the health system under the Unity Labour Party administration improved in a revolutionary manner.

Dr. Gonsalves said he had a very pleasant experience when he went to the Byera Clinic for his grand daughter to receive the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), vaccine.

“And this is a temporary clinic which we built. The ULP spent in the region of close to $800,000 or thereabouts…”.

He said the ULP administration commenced the project before the general elections with loan funds from the World Bank.

“…cheap money! 40 something years to pay back at three quarter of 1 per cent interest, that’s the kind of money we negotiated and got to do that particular clinic.”

He said the New Democratic Party (NDP) administration does not really have to do anything, as the contractors do their work, and the civil servants just overlook it.

“…the road, everything pave already, everything,” he stated.

“ [We] built the one in South rivers first, was a little less costly.”

Dr. Gonsalves spoke as well about the atmosphere in the clinic’s environs, and the good staff.

“ …imagine a child coming out from that situation, the pain of getting the needle, they cry, but soon as they come out on the little verandah there, they see about four or five sheep, two goats, a couple of dogs, the Atlantic Ocean, the breeze coming there.”

He said that he walked with his granddaughter down to the sheep and the goats, sat on a fallen coconut tree and allowed the breeze from the coast to fan him.

The child, he added, grew very calm after receiving the vaccination and stressed that the ULP government did a fantastic job in strengthening general paediatric care and health care in the state.

Politics aside, Dr. Gonsalves said “…you have to admit that the health system under the Unity Labour Party government improved in a revolutionary manner.”