"SMACKS OF A COVER UP" claim GSLP_LIBS

Opposition press release.

" the GSD Government is quite capable of altering minutes retrospectively in order to wriggle out of their responsibilities and it raises the question of how often and on how many other issues they have done this."

The fact that the record of a meeting of the Ambulance Executive Team that took place in August has been changed two months later to read something different is an issue which the Opposition takes very seriously. The general perception is that this has happened not because its content was “erroneous” but because it caused considerable embarrassment to Health Minister Yvette del Agua who was blamed personally for the delay in ordering the new ambulances.

  It will be recalled that the document entitled “Notes and Action Points of the Ambulance Executive Team” dated Tuesday 23rd August 2011 declared that “Government procurement could not start the tender process for the new ambulances because the Minister had not signed the requisition letter.”

  The decision of the GHA and the Government to change the record of the meeting at this time to read something different smacks of a cover up.

  Moreover, the record of the meeting also stated that the whole process of upgrading the ambulances “had been deferred” and that as a result this was not going to be possible until February/March 2012. The same meeting was warned once again “of the poor state of the emergency ambulances and of the consequences of delaying their replacement including safety implication for the crews and patients.” The meeting was told that the crews could no longer be made responsible for their patients.

  Moreover, two years earlier, in August 2009 the Ambulance Executive Team meeting was told of the concern that existed “over the poor state of some of the ambulances in their fleet and the need to have them replaced.” Therefore the argument that six new ambulances were purchased four years ago, in 2007, is totally irrelevant since already by 2009 the internal GHA documents show that some of the ambulances were in a poor state.

  The Government has to understand that it is they who have damaged the reputation and the credibility of the ambulance service. The present position is no reflection on the hard-working ambulance crews or the mechanics who repair the ambulances. It is exclusively the failure of the GSD Government to give priority to this issue even though they were warned about the poor condition of some of the ambulances two years ago.

  The record of these meetings showed that the Minister was responsible for the delay in the purchase of new ambulances. They also show that despite funds being included in the 2009/2010 estimates and the 2010/2011 estimates the new ambulances did not materialise. Moreover, two of them, AS2 and AS3 had been due to be replaced in 2008!

  It is not surprising that the new ambulances have now been ordered after the matter was exposed by the Opposition. Far from being “misconduct” or “unprofessional behaviour”, the leak of GHA documents to the Opposition has been in the public interest because it has finally resulted in the purchase of three new ambulances.

  It is an insult to people’s intelligence that the GHA, whose chairman is the Minister for Health, should “correct” the record of a meeting which showed up the actions of the Minister herself. In the final analysis the electorate will judge for themselves why this happened and time will tell what the motives were particularly in the event of a change of Government in Gibraltar before the end of the year.

  What this latest development reveals is that the GSD Government is quite capable of altering minutes retrospectively in order to wriggle out of their responsibilities and it raises the question of how often and on how many other issues they have done this.