by Linda Straker
- Significant roadblocks of diaspora medical professionals being received well in Grenada
- Entire medical community in Grenada needs to address cultural issue of roadblocking
- PM prepared to tackle this challenge even if it results in losing next general election
Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell claims that the local medical community is not welcoming to Grenadians in the diaspora working in medical fields and who want to offer free services that will complement or enhance the existing healthcare system.
“There is a cultural challenge where Grenadians who are specialists in the diaspora are often not received well locally or there are significant roadblocks in terms of being received well,” he said during his first interview for 2025 with the Grenada Broadcasting Network (GBN).
“I am talking about this because that is a major challenge; it’s one of the reasons why people give up. There are doctors who wish to volunteer and for some reason, there is almost a culture where people are heaping scorn,” he told Colin Dowe, host of the weekly Monday night Beyond the Headlines programme.
“We cannot continue to preside over failure and we can’t continue to preside over a poor health system when there are people, Grenadians in the diaspora, oftentimes first educated here, sometimes up to TAMCC, who have family members here and who are willing to offer voluntarily or on a pro bono basis their services and they cannot get the opportunity simply because we put roadblocks or we block them,” he said.
When Dowe asked about the role of the Medical and Dental Council as mandated in the 2010 Health Practitioner Act, the prime minister said, “It’s not just the Medical and Dental Council, but I think the entire medical community in Grenada needs to address this cultural issue.”
“As Prime Minister, we sometimes feel as if we are fighting against medical professionals sometimes to get them to receive help from their colleagues and I am unapologetic about that because it is the truth,” he said. “I don’t understand why…we can either do nothing and continue with the situation or accept that we have a major challenge and go about tackling that challenge.”
The prime minister told Dowe that he is prepared to tackle this cultural challenge even if it results in his administration losing the next general election.
“Obviously as prime minister of the country, I am prepared to tackle the challenge. I am prepared to be voted out of office for speaking the truth because mark my word if we don’t address this issue [in] 5, 10, 15 years from now, it will be even worse,” he said.
The Prime Minister is absolutely correct. I am Grenadian with specialty training in infectious diseases and internal medicine I worked for the CDC for almost a decade. During my tenure at CDC I carried out a needs assessment of the microbiology laboratory and the intensive care unit at the St. George’s general hospital. Funding was obtained from USAID to address these needs. Certain individuals in the then government dragged their feet because they did not want an “outsider” Grenadian. I ended up giving the funding to hospitals in Malawi and Tanzania in Sub-Saharan Africa. I challenge any Grenadian to go visit the ICU and the lab at the General Hospital. Nothing has changed. The ICU and the microbiology lab is the same as it was 30 years ago.
It takes courage,Mr.Prime Minister, to say hard things. I applaud you!
Well said,Mr PM
This happens in almost all aspect of life in Grenada and needs to be rooted out at all cost.
My PM. Dalu.
My brother and I are Grenadians ( both doctors who reside abroad ) who would love to contribute our expertise to the local community. We were not aware that this issue existed since we had not started the process of getting registered as medical practitioners. Hopefully things will improve as we focus on how we might improve the health of patients
PM I applaud you for speaking the truth!