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Dear Sir,

I would appreciate the opportunity to clarify a statistic that was used by Tom Vesey in his article on Friday, March 7.  

He referenced the hospital with a figure from the First Phase Johns Hopkins Medicine International Report and said that our length of stay at the hospital is 17.3 days compared to 5.1 days in the U.S. and 6.9 days in the U.K.

  However, this is not an "apples to apples" comparison. The report does explain that the 17.3 days figure includes our continuing care, psychiatric and hospice clients. The U.S. and U.K. figures are purely for acute care beds.  

Bermuda Hospitals Board's acute care figure is 9.0 days for acute beds, which would be a like-with-like comparison.

On pages 34 and 35 there is a clear explanation that the overseas figure is for "acute medical/surgical patients" and uses the 9 days figure for a graphical comparison.

  The report is publicly available on our website at www.bermudahospitals.bm for any member of the public to review.

David Hill

Chief Executive Officer, Bermuda Hospitals Board[[In-content Ad]]

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