Hip, Hip, Hooray For Helath Authority And Eric Reid

There was much delight at the Operational Review meeting of the Health Authority of Anguilla at Paradise Cove on Wednesday when Chief Executive Officer, Dexter James, announced that the island’s health services were accredited by the Canadian Council for the Accreditation of Health Services.

Anguilla has therefore scored another first in the region, with no other territory’s health services having been accredited and by such a prestigious organisation. There is good reason for celebration because only a few short years ago the medical and health services in Anguilla were grossly under-developed and heavily criticised by many of the island’s own people who now must come to appreciate that there is great improvement and confidence in the system.

One recalls when an ailing, but determined Eric Reid, then Minister of Health, struggled to present his address introducing the Heath Authority legislation. He was fed up with the poor system and the inability of the Government’s administrative machinery to satisfactorily run and develop the health sector, and forced himself to stay on his feet as he made his delivery in the House of Assembly. His success in establishing the Health Authority has left an indelible mark of achievement on his long political career. It has been his crowning act and a feather in his cap. The Government and people of Anguilla owe him a debt of gratitude for his foresight and tenacity of which Dr. Phyllis Fleming-Banks spoke.

The Health Authority has progressed in its work to the extent that it is now being called upon by the Pan American Health Organisation to assist with the development of pilot accreditation health services in a number of regional islands. But the Health Authority in Anguilla must not sit on its laurels. Its work must be a continuous one to ever sustain the standards it has set and the confidence of the people it has sought to satisfy.

There is hardly anything in the history of the island’s health services to build upon. We who lived long on the island, and were products of its woeful social situation, recall the awful state of the health system and when at times there was not even a doctor available for regular attention. We had to be innovative to achieve our goals. That Anguilla with its former backwardness should come from behind other regional territories and surpass them in the development and accreditation of its health services, is indeed cause for much pride in this 40th anniversary of the island’s revolution.

Hip, Hip, Hooray for the Health Authority of Anguilla and its pioneer, the Honourable Eric Reid!