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If putting a new hospital in the middle of the Botanical Gardens was a strange decision, stranger still have been the efforts to justify it.

"There's No Way to Save the Gardens" said the headline in the Bermuda Sun, summing up the views of Hospitals Board Chairman Anthony Richardson.

Health Minister Patrice Minors delivered a similar lecture on the front page of The Royal Gazette, which summarized her statement with the headline "Get Over it".

"The best thing going forward," Ms Minors declared, "is for the community to accept this decision so our focus can turn to moving this project forward in a way that embraces the future sustainability of our health-care requirements and our parklands."

The Premier, meanwhile, responded to concerns about the new hospital by being sarcastic: "We'll just build around the trees," he said. "You may even have one in your room."

This is an insulting and condescending way to treat the people of Bermuda.

The people of Bermuda care about their environment, love the Botanical Gardens, and don't want to see their island's rare green space destroyed if there's any possible way to avoid it.

But they are being told, in effect, to keep their opinions to themselves, stop whining and support the Government no matter what it does.

Neither the hospital nor the Minister showed anything approaching flexibility - or even a willingness to treat the fears and concerns with the respect they deserve…or respond seriously and in detail to suggestions for other approaches.

They have mentioned, as evidence that they involved the public in their decision, that the hospital "consulted" citizens in a series of town hall meetings.

This claim compounds the insult, because the clear majority view in those meetings was that any new hospital should be built on the site of the old one, and not in the Botanical Gardens.

The whole thing, it seems, was a shallow PR exercise, and not a serious effort to explore ways of rebuilding a community hospital that are more acceptable to the community it serves.

The Government and the Hospitals Board have made little more than a cursory effort to explain and justify their decision.

Ms Minors, for example, defended the Botanical Gardens site by saying:

"It was made in the best interest of our health care needs, and is consistent with the kind of healthcare everyone in Bermuda expects to receive. The Government is committed to green space but we have to bear in mind we live in a small island community with limited land mass."

What kind of vague, meaningless justification is this?

The citizens of this country deserve better, but they aren't getting it from the hospital chairman, according to the Bermuda Sun.

"Mr. Richardson says the board is more than willing to talk to the environmentalists, but they shouldn't be under any illusions that they are going to change where the hospital will be built.

'This is the right decision for the healthcare of Bermuda,' he said."

Of course they think the decision is right or, presumably, they would not have made it.

They haven't responded to the legitimate worries and concerns.

They haven't attempted to answer fears that the old hospital site will be difficult or impossible to turn it into pristine green space, or that it will be used up by some other pressing need of the hospital.

The Government and the Hospitals Board haven't allayed people's fears that new hospital entranceways and parking lots will have a huge detrimental effect on the gardens.

They have done nothing to convince citizens that the Botanical Gardens will end up seeming like the approaches to a big hospital building, rather than the isolated oasis it now is.

They haven't tried to persuade the public that this will not be a precedent of any kind - that remaining green acres of the Botanical Gardens would be preserved no matter what the pressures, or that other parks will be safe from development.

They haven't answered questions about the National Parks Act, which is supposed to protect the Botanical Gardens and other parks from development.

They haven't responded to concerns raised by the Bermuda National Trust, who many Bermudians consider their main advocate on environmental matters. According to the Trust, the Hospitals Board hasn't even replied to its correspondence.

Ready or not?

When faced with specific questions, the Minister and Hospitals Board have been quick to stress that specific plans aren't ready yet.

But if they aren't ready to answer these kinds of questions , they surely aren't ready to declare their decision to be final and correct.

In all of this, the Government and the Hospitals Board have forgotten this important fact:

This country belongs to its citizens. The Botanical Gardens is our park, not theirs; the hospital is our hospital, not theirs.

We depend on our leaders to lead us, and respect their guidance.

But the least that the Premier and the Government and the Hospitals Board could do is be prepared to explain their views clearly to the people of this country, to listen sincerely and without sarcasm, and to demonstrate this sincerity by being willing to modify their position.[[In-content Ad]]

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