Health Care insurance proposed by UWP leader

Health care insurance has been proposed by the leader of the opposition United Workers Party (UWP), Allen Chastanet, to ensure that every Saint Lucian has access to affordable medical care.

Asserting that health care is a basic human right, the former Tourism Minister told party supporters last night that every Saint Lucian must have health care insurance.

“Let us not fool ourselves because no government by itself can pay for health care,” Chastanet said.

He added:

“You cannot sit every year and budget how many people are going to get sick. It does not work so. You cannot go to a hospital and the hospital is not compensated for the services it renders. Cos if you keep doing that and you go to the well too often the well will become dry.”

The UWP leader explained that it meant that everybody who goes to the hospital they must pay for their services.

He observed that the only way to ensure that all Saint Lucians can afford to pay for health care is for every single citizen, young, old, employed or unemployed to have health care insurance.

While not explaining how health care insurance would be achieved, the UWP leader declared that his party was committed to ensuring that locals have affordable health care.

“We must be able to make that happen cos in our conscience and heart we know that is a basic human right,” Chastanet told party faithful at a political meeting last night in the Castries South constituency.