BVIHSA 'jumping through hoops' to fix issues' @Nurse Iris O'Neal Medical Centre
The BVIHSA will hold a community meeting at the St Mary’s Church hall from 5:30 PM.
“We’re inviting members of the Virgin Gorda community out to the meeting. We’re going to update the community on the infrastructural challenges at the Iris O’Neal Clinic, also to hear from the community their concerns as it relates to healthcare on the island,” Marketing and Communications Manager at BVIHSA, Damion C. Grange said during Talking Points on Monday, December 8, 2025.
Service at the Nurse Iris O’Neal Clinic was disrupted in October 2025 for essential infrastructural work. Since then, a field hospital has been deployed on the clinic’s grounds.
Grange, who is also a co-host of Talking Points, added, “We have had a number of challenges, and we were jumping through hoops to resolve issues, and we’re now getting back around to meeting with the community. It’s long overdue, and so better late than never.”
More community meetings as part of Strategic Plan
Grange said the BVIHSA recently launched its Strategic Plan, and part of the authority’s goal is to ensure there is dialogue with the community.
“We are shaping healthcare together,” he said, adding, “We don’t want to sit from the desk of BVIHSA and say this is what we’re doing; we want to ensure that the care we provide is meeting the needs of the community.”
Grange said going forward, the BVIHSA is committed to having regular community meetings and having more dialogues with the community as the BVIHSA aims to improve healthcare together.
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10 Responses to “BVIHSA 'jumping through hoops' to fix issues' @Nurse Iris O'Neal Medical Centre”
So let us stop pretending that a minister, in just two short years, could walk in and undo decades of structural neglect. Governance is not a flick of a light switch. It requires patience, consistency, and the courage to confront hard truths.
And let us also ground this discussion in facts. An MRI machine costs roughly $1.3 million. To install it is another $800,000. To maintain it each year — nearly $200,000. And the essential question remains: is there a steady, sustainable demand to justify that level of expenditure? A CT scanner is another million dollars, and while it plays a critical role in emergencies, MRIs serve a very different purpose — detection, diagnosis, and preventative medicine.
We must stop oversimplifying matters of national importance. Health care decisions require sober judgment, responsible stewardship, and a clear understanding of the realities before us. Not cheap commentary. Not noise. Not distraction.
Independence them say...
The purpose of any project is an excuse to get a budget of money and find a way to divide it amongst a group of favoured people. Starting with politicians and then to their friends and family.
The job is considered complete once the money is in the peoples hands.
It does not matter the quality of the project, it does not matter whether the people of the VI got value for money, or if the item or building is ever maintained or even works.
The job is done. The money is passed to the right people.
The same is the purpose of the airport. It does not have to be something we need, it does not have to have a buisness case that makes sense, it just needs an excuse to gain access to a big pot of money that can be shared to the "right" people. No oversight, no assessments before checks or monies are paid out. Nothing needs to be completed or to be standard before money is passed out. Kickbacks need to be calculated in.
A hopsital does not need equipment, roads do not need maintenance or cleaning equipment, inceinerators do not need parts or on going maintenance. An airline does not need planes. Greenhouses do not need plants. Ferry terminals do not need docks, airports do not need arrival and departure boards. Road lighting does not need to light up. Fences do not need to remain in place. Road markings do not need to be seen. $5,000,000 Million deposited in a bank does not need ever to come back......
You get the idea??
How it works is the project is not important. The project is just the method for getting a chunk of cash into peoples pockets. The people in power at the time just decide whose pockets and how much.
Once that is done. The project is a success.
The measure is not how good the building is or if the clinic works will or has the right equipment.
The measure is did the people we wanted to have a share of the money get the money.
Until we change that we will have empty hospitals, reliant on L. Smith and schools needing Haycrafts, and crumbling projects like Prospect Reef, West End Ferry Dock, Admin Building etc...
If the $3Billion dollars spent in the last 8 years had not been shared out amongst a few favored families and friends and politicians and had been spent with value for money on projects what amazing islands and infrastucture we would have now. Instead of a few families now owning most of the businesses and real estate companies from one end of the islands to the other.
In the meantime the rest of us will have hospitals without laundrys and clinics in tents and open fields where schools should be and landfills and open burning instead of incinerators, dangerous crumbling docks where they exist at all, flat land instead of an old peoples home, HOA giving themselves massive salary increases, HOA keeping Minimum Wage to the Minimum, buildings without maintenance, Roadtown without sidewalks, Heritage areas without access, damaged books with no library, school with an unfinished wall, Attorney General without staff, DPP without staff, roads with holes, roads without markings, roads for two cars that can fit only one car, roads filled with bush, roads filled with rocks, roads under water, roads under construction for 2 years, roads that are really not roads at all.
What most people do not understand is that the purpose of projects is not getting the project completed or done right. The only important thing is to get the money handed out, The project matters for nothing. The project is only a way to get the money to a select group of people.
Sometimes the money gets paid too soon like with the airplanes and we get absolutely nothing at all - and the greenhouses when we grow not a single things - and the consultancies before we get reports like Claude's.
But is does not matter. The job is done.
Claude got his money. The greenhouse money got to those that mattered as did the airplane cash and no doubt the Asia Bank Money. All the wall money paid and the wall never finished.
You all confused if you think the point of these projects is for the VI and the people of the VI to end up with very much at all.
The point is for some people to get hold of the MONEY.
Understand that and you understand it all.