Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) St. Anne’s candidate Dr. Charles Clarke and PLP South Beach candidate Cleola Hamilton both agreed that Free National Movement Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis did nothing to advance National Health Insurance (NHI) when he served as minister of health.

During a press conference yesterday, Dr. Clarke and Hamilton said when Dr. Minnis served as minister of health from 2007 – 2012, the only thing he did was approved a government contract for his own company.

According to Hamilton, Dr. Minnis’ job as minister of health was to negotiate with the Nurses’ Union, but Dr. Minnis bullied nurses into ending their protest over a delay in promised health insurance benefits.

Dr. Minnis is promising that if Bahamians elect him, it will be the ‘People’s Time’.

“So for Bahamians without health insurance or Bahamian nurses, it was not the people’s time,” Hamilton, also former president of the Bahamas Nurses Union, added.

Since yesterday, NHI officials reported that more than 3,600 persons have enroled in NHI.

Emphasizing that Dr. Minnis did nothing for NHI when boasting that it’s the ‘People’s Time’, Dr. Clarke and Hamilton explained that Dr. Minnis’ record shows that the ‘People’s Time’ is an empty promise because he has failed repeatedly to help Bahamians or represent Bahamian interests when he was in a position to do so.

Both PLP candidates pointed out that Minnis’ record as minister of health is one of threats, apathy, mediocrity, failure and self-dealing.

Dr. Clarke, who is also a doctor in the Department of Surgery at Princess Margaret Hospital, told The Bahama Journal that Dr. Minnis has been inadequate on other issues while he served as minister of health.

Dr. Clarke claimed that Dr. Minnis didn’t handle the dengue outbreak adequately.

Dr. Clarke explained that there were less than 200 cases of the dengue fever at the beginning of the outbreak and by the time Dr. Minnis decided to deal with the situation, there were almost 7,000 cases.

“His commitment to people is inadequate,” Dr. Clarke said.

He also noted that Dr. Minnis never sought a raise in doctors’ salaries when he was minister of health.

“He could have looked at the salary packages and say you all could be moved ahead,” Dr. Clarke said. “It took the PLP government to look at the salaries and see that it was inadequate and try to change it.”