Today, the people of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas are apparently expected to rejoice as though a brand-new Minister of Health has just descended from the heavens in the person of Dr. Michael Darville.

One could be forgiven for assuming this is Dr. Darville’s very first week on the job given the latest declarations that Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) is an “aging structure” in desperate need of repairs and “major changes.”

Because naturally, after nearly five years in office, this shocking revelation has only now been discovered.

According to The Nassau Guardian, Dr. Darville recently promised that “major changes” are coming to PMH after viral photographs circulated online showing deplorable conditions inside the hospital, including flooding reportedly being soaked up with bed sheets and allegations of rodents inside a ward.

The minister stated:

“There’s always ongoing challenges with an aging structure…”

An astonishing discovery indeed.

One almost wonders whether PMH only became an aging structure after the photographs began circulating on social media. Perhaps the leaks, deterioration and complaints were invisible before Facebook got involved.

The truly remarkable part is not that PMH needs repairs. Bahamians have known this for years. The remarkable part is the political amnesia now on display.

When the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) returned to office in 2021 under the slogan “A New Day,” many Bahamians understandably believed this would include urgently addressing the country’s primary public hospital. Instead, one of the first major healthcare decisions made by the new administration was to cancel the Minnis administration’s planned redevelopment and renovation agreement for PMH.

At the time, the PLP argued that it wanted to review the arrangement and pursue a broader healthcare vision, including plans for a new specialty hospital. The optics were excellent. The press conferences were polished. The promises were ambitious.

Unfortunately, leaking ceilings are apparently unimpressed by optics.

While government officials spoke grandly about “transformational healthcare,” PMH continued to deteriorate in real time. Bahamians continued sitting in overcrowded clinics. Patients continued enduring conditions unworthy of a modern healthcare system. Staff continued working under increasingly difficult circumstances. And now, after securing a second consecutive term in office and after social media outrage forced public attention back onto PMH, the administration has suddenly rediscovered urgency.

Now the public is being told funding has been allocated. Now repairs are being prioritized. Now “major changes” are coming soon.

Soon.

That magical political word that always seems to arrive after elections instead of before them.

What many right-thinking Bahamians are now asking is painfully simple: if these repairs were so necessary today, why were they not treated as urgent in 2021? Why cancel an existing renovation path only to circle back years later to the exact same reality everyone already understood — that PMH was collapsing under age, neglect and deferred maintenance?

And perhaps the most uncomfortable question of all is this: at whose expense was this political exercise carried out?

Not merely monetary expense.

Health expense.

Patient expense.

Public confidence expense.

Because while governments conduct reviews, issue talking points and rehearse slogans about “vision,” ordinary Bahamians are the ones sitting in flooded wards waiting for healthcare in a system everyone acknowledges is failing.

The tragedy is not that PMH is old. The tragedy is that it apparently took viral embarrassment and a second election victory for the government to publicly behave as though the condition of the country’s primary hospital was finally worth serious attention.

Just shameful.

The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) government fails for one reason; it is their nature.

END