How much taxpayers will have to pay for the outsourcing of biomedical facilities in hospitals – NFP Leader

National Federation Party Leader, Professor Biman Prasad has questioned how much the taxpayers will have to pay for the outsourcing of biomedical facilities in public hospitals to the private sector and whether patients will have to fork out money.

Prasad says Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has announced a new plan of privatising biomedical services with no consideration to those already employed in our medical facilities.

Sayed-Khaiyum revealed during the budget consultation that they are in the process of advertising for all the biomedical facilities including x-ray machines, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan machines, ultra sound machines and CT scanners to be maintained by the private sector in public hospitals. He did not reveal further details.

The NFP Leader says biomedical services also includes anaesthetics and clinical or testing laboratories and questioned if these too are to be outsourced.

Prasad says instead of governing, the FijiFirst government has now cemented its reputation as a government bereft of sound ideas and practical solutions that are workable.

Prasad says the government seems to have outsourced the governance of our nation to a cabal of businessmen.

He says 15 years of failure has seen MRI scanners, catheterization (cath) lab and other sophisticated medical equipment ignored, leading to their breakdown and depriving people of essential medical services.

We have sent questions to Sayed-Khaiyum. He is yet to respond. When questioned, Permanent Secretary for Health, Dr. James Fong says he understands the announcement by Sayed-Khaiyum are policy directions that Health, Trade and and Ministry of Economy will need to scope and plan around before they can answer our questions.

He says there are opportunities for them to take advantage of and mitigation measures to be taken which will be part of the multisectoral discussions.