The Anguilla Government has signed up its permanent establishment of some nine hundred civil servants and their immediate families into an air ambulance evacuation plan, an initial step in the provision of an eventual island-wide service for the population.

CM Fleming addressing Civil Service Unions

This was revealed at the Chief Minister’s Press Conference on Tuesday this week. The air ambulance service was one of three matters discussed last week during a meeting between the Government and the various civil service associations. “We were very pleased with that meeting,” Mr. Fleming commented.

“Despite the fact that our financial position is not the best in the world, we recognise that we had asked civil servants to take a reduction in salaries which they did,” Chief Minister Osbourne Fleming stated. “Realising the kind of environment we live in today…we felt that the provision of a medical air ambulance service is something that we should be involved in because we don’t know the day when our time will come. And so we had discussions with a company to provide the service and the cost will be about US$10 a month and we agreed that all civil servants should be covered with that kind of facility. We have decided to do this without any cost to the civil servants.” He said the provision of the services would take effect on September 1.

Mr. Fleming went on: “We also reiterated our position regarding the reduction in salaries and gave the unions the assurance that the money [taken from them] will be paid back when the Government’s financial position improves. That is again something that they took very calmly.

“There is a rumour around the country that the Government of Anguilla is in the process of a further reduction in salary. I was shocked to hear this because we have never discussed this matter…I believe that would be the last resort to go back to that again. We just can’t think about that right now, so I hope that my statement would erase any rumour going around and put it at rest.” The third matter he referred to was medical insurance currently being provided for civil servants by Government through British American Insurance Company, but he allowed the Minister of Finance, Victor Banks, to deal with this and other matters.

Mr. Banks confirmed that the air ambulance evacuation services would be implemented for civil servants and their families as part of a plan to extend those services throughout the wider community. “Occasionally we have taken Anguillians off island for tertiary medical care at considerable expense and we, as a Government, must find ways and means of reducing that expense,” he stated, noting that in the majority of cases persons have had to meet that high cost themselves.

Members of the various Civil Service Unions

The Minister of Finance told the reporters that on Monday this week the Government signed up the civil servants and their immediate families in the air ambulance plan. The locally-based company is Medical Air Services Association. He said that the service would also be available to the extended families of government employees for an additional charge and was also to take in all persons on the island. He disclosed that the air ambulance service was being discussed with Social Security as part of its programme of benefits for the people of Anguilla.

Mr. Banks said the Government had also undertaken to look into the matter of health insurance being provided to civil servants through British American Insurance Company, now undergoing certain challenges, and the difficulties of handling claims. He referred to the situation where an Administrator, in the person of Claudel Romney, Senior Partner of KPMG, had been appointed by the Court to oversee the operations of the Anguilla branch, as part of an arrangement in other islands served by the company.

Mr. Banks stated that the Anguilla Government was responding to the needs of civil servants whose claims would need to be processed very quickly. He gave the assurance that Government had taken a decision to look into the possibility of putting out a tender for another insurance provider before the end of the month.

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