OBA’s David Rogers On Hospital, Health, More
“We know what the problems are, we know many of the answers” and the “real question now is whether we have the courage to act before the next emergency,” OBA Senator David Rogers said in reference to the issues at the hospital.
Opposition Senator David Rogers said, “We seem to have another emergency on our hands. Once again, our hospital is full. Real emergencies should be rare and hard to predict. But, what we have here happens often, and we should have seen it coming. We are paying for quality care with our tax dollars, yet people are being treated in hallways and closets.
“This is not an emergency; it is a pattern. There was a bed crisis in December 2024, July 2024, March 2025, April 2025, and again this month. Even one crisis like this would be unacceptable because we knew it could happen. But this is a repeating problem that leaders saw coming and chose not to stop.
“The former chief of emergency said it clearly: during his two years leading the new emergency department, he recorded between six and seven deaths that he believed were directly caused by boarding and overcrowding. Think about those deaths not as numbers, but as real people. They were mothers, fathers, grandparents, and neighbours who walked into the hospital for help and never walked out again.
“This suffering is happening because of inaction, and we can no longer say we did not know. This ‘new normal’ is dangerous. When substandard care becomes the norm, it shows that our sense of right and wrong has started to slip. Treating preventable harm as normal does not make it less serious; it just means we are more complicit in letting it happen.
“The hardest truth is that we already know the root causes, and we are already aware of the solutions. People are receiving care in the wrong place. When people cannot see a primary care doctor, they end up in the emergency room for problems that do not require emergency care and should be handled in clinics or GP offices. When there are not enough step‑down rehabilitation units or residential care homes, patients who no longer require acute care must stay in hospital beds because there is no appropriate, safe space for them to go. When those beds are full, new patients have to wait in corridors. This is not a mystery; it is a broken system that we have chosen not to fix.
“So what should we do?
“First, we must focus on step‑down and community care so patients who are medically ready to leave are not taking up acute beds. This means investing in rehabilitation, long‑term care, and home‑care services so people can safely leave the hospital sooner. It also means working closely with families, long‑term care homes, and community groups so that planning for discharge starts the day a patient is admitted, not at the last minute.
“Next, we must protect emergency care so it can do what it is meant to do. The emergency department should not become a permanent ward. To stop that from happening, we need more staff and better surge capacity so people can be treated in proper rooms, not corridors. We also need better access to same‑day and after‑hours primary care so people do not have to use the emergency department as their only way into the health system.
“Finally, we should agree to an independent review of deaths that may have been caused by boarding and overcrowding. Families deserve clear answers when a loved one dies after days in a hallway. A fair, open review of these deaths would help us learn so that we do not repeat the same mistakes. That review must lead to strong rules and standards so that ‘never events’ really never happen again.
“We cannot erase the suffering that has already happened. But we can choose together not to accept a health system where deaths in hallways are the predictable result of doing nothing. We know what the problems are. We know many of the answers. The real question now is whether we have the courage to act before the next emergency, the next crisis, and the next preventable death in a hallway that all of us pay for.”
Bernews asked BHB and the Health Ministry for comment and will update as able.
While everyone wants the best health outcomes, this comes across as politically motivated ambulance chasing (no puns intended). This is meant to rile up and feed on the emotions of people. It will be very difficult to determine if a death was caused due to the overcrowding in the hospital. Overcrowding happens at many a hospital and while not ideal, it does not necessarily correlate with negligence.
It is all political manoeuvring these days. The truth no longer matters.
The PLP told us that the America’s Cup was the OBA Government giving away billions of dollars to white billionaires.
Now back in power, the PLP Government is promoting SailGP, which is America’s Cup light.
The PLP Government built the hospital by way of private-public partnership we are not allowed to know about, but complains incessantly about the new airport terminal which we did not pay one penny for.
Political opinion columns are not meant to inform, they are meant to inflame.
The overcrowding of the hospital is this. There are elderly patients in the hospital, especially in the Acute Care ward who are fit enough to be discharged. The children of these patients don’t want to take the responsibility of looking after them at home. I am in hospital, located in the fracture clinic,the overflow from the emergency dept. Why am I here is because the disrespect of the children mentioned above not looking at the wider picture of those who need privacy while in hospital, not having to share a makeshift room.
Steve, sadly, in some cases the children do not want to collect and care for a parent because by leaving the parent in hospital the children can do what they want with the parent’s home.
There is definitely an element of some children not wanting to take home their elders, but there is also an issue with some children not being able to house them properly if they did take them home. Financially it is enormously expensive, many families are not living in homes conducive to caring for elders. It is a multifaceted issue.
Totally agree with you Joe. The days of respecting your elders is over.
The real question remains, why on earth would you build a smaller hospital with a growing aging population? Just look at what we had and then compare that to what we have now the next time you drive by. I get that medically fit persons are still left to be cared for at the hospital. That is not the cause of this situation. We had 4 patients per room on 4 really big floors, now its a single patient to a room on a much smaller footprint. There is a waste of space with that design as it is. All this under the leadership of the PLP and then minister of Health, the Hon. Deputy Primier who so clearly stated that this hospital was a step in the right direction. Clearly the opposite!
“The real question remains, why on earth would you build a smaller hospital with a growing aging population?”
The new hospital building was not designed to be a general hospital. It was designed to be a boutique clinic for the wealthy. Unfortunately for Bermuda, the PLP Government did not follow through with its plans for medical tourism and we are left with a building that was never intended to be a general hospital.
While there is something to be said for the design, rooms with 4 people in them is not feasible for transmissible diseases, and confidentiality especially. Many hospitals overseas now have single rooms for this purpose. This was not a new hospital, but was a new wing to the hospital.
If all those that were able to leave the hospital had somewhere to go, this would not be the issue that it is.
“This was not a new hospital, but was a new wing to the hospital.”
I “wing” to a hospital is a building. That is hospital design language.
A mixture of “wards”, semi-private rooms, and private rooms has been standard for hospitals for generations. I am not saying such a configuration is ideal, only that it has withstood the test of time.
A new wing that cost over $1bn and reducing the number of beds.