"This was sent to Premier Dr. Ewart Brown and copied to The Royal Gazette:"

May 14, 2008

Dear Dr. Brown,

As my Premier and a Doctor, I would like to ask you how you, the Government for the people – prioritise spending our tax dollars.

I ask this question in light of losing my only brother on April 12, 2008. An ambulance was called. Due to the response time and the attendant's lack of caring and training, my brother didn't stand a chance.

Our family learnt from Dr. Shultz that we do not have paramedics – because the Government – which is you – thinks it is too expensive to train them. Further, he states that we only lose one person a year – this year it is my brother. Should I thank you for that? How he arrives at that figure, of course, I don't know – you would?

Would it cost more than the $11 million that you gave to cricket, the $14 million to soccer, the $1 million to run one ferry each year or the numerous trips our Ministers take just to name a few, to train paramedics?

The Government for the people – I know only too well the value placed on the people. Is it good enough to flaunt our cricket teams, our association with baseball teams overseas and all the rest of the showmanship – when our ambulances are on a par to any meat wagon, and no-one trained to operate them? I ask you, as a doctor, should not our healthcare be the priority? Is that not a Government for the people?

I am angry that my brother, one of four in my family, had no chance, and I expect no response to this letter, just as we have never had a response from the cell phone message to the Health Minister immediately after the death of my brother, but at best I do hope that you will have found the time in your busy schedule to have read this.

MARION BISHOP

City of Hamilton"

Tragic. With 9 road fatalities so far and Bermuda does not have any trained up Paramedics? With so many tourists coming to island and someone decides it's too expensive to have trained Paramedics? Was this decided during one of the secret Saturday morning meetings?

My heart goes out to Mrs. Bishop and all those who must now realize that their Government leaders, with a Doctor at the very top of them no less, has taken it upon themselves to pad PL(P)AYERS pockets rather than train up Paramedics.

How much better would $400,000 have been spent rather than on Faith Based tourism? Shameful.

Bell - that was my first drop-jaw response. And the fact that the Minister of Health didn't even have the common decency to respond to a phone call. There is WAY too much political interference going on at both the hospital and the emergency response services. But hey, what do you expect there's a Brown brother running the show in each category.....

Absolutely pathetic...nothing else that can be said on that matter...welcome to bermuda

http://firstaid.about.com/od/emergencymedicalservices/qt/06_EMTBvsP.htm

I guess it depends on what you would expect the 'paramedic' to do, as opposed to the EMT on every ambulance.

what about the health minister's response (or non-response)?  He was too busy to even get one of his cronies to return the call?  This is the government for the people, right?  Please correct me if I am mistaken...

Has anyone actually confirmed this information besides what was stated in the letter to the editor? I mean, condolences to this lady and I feel horrible that there was a possibility that her brother could have been saved but (as I've said numerous times) I'd like actual facts. Mitigating circumstances and all the rest (and no, I'm not saying that there were any!).

I mean we talk on here about knee-jerk responses but we are so quick to do them ourselves. Imagine that.

I think the "knee-jerk" response is to my posting the thread. It's not a knee jerk response on many levels. Trust me. Let's just say I'm well aware of many things that go on in the hospital through a friend of mine....

Bermuda is a very wealthy community. As talented as our EMT's are we can well afford to train up some of these personnel to be at the level of a Paramedic. I do not know what the cost entails but surely you must agree that every Ambulance that goes out on an emergency call should have at least one Paramedic on board. If it just comes down to expense then that's no excuse when we spend millions on just government travel alone.

Especially given that the island's medical services are so centralised.

 If it's as bad as some are making it out to here, I suggest taking some money from the Consolidated Fund bring things up to standard.

All you need is one US Lawyer or person of prominance to be subjected to something like this or related and .....well yah know.....................

It should'nt take that and probabley won't but what do residents really feel about this or are they being left in the dark once more.

Someone is dropping the ball somewhere and according to news releases and photo's I am convinced I know whom is. From the top down............................