The West End News

Legislative
Record
JOURNAL

FOURTH
LEGISLATURE
OF THE
VIRGIN ISLANDS OF THE UNITED STATES

Regular Session
1962

LEGISLATIVE DAY, MONDAY, JAN. 15, 1962

Continued from Thursday

MR. GOMEZ: The Senator knows I didn't say such a thing; I referred to undeveloped countries.

MR. MOOREHEAD: Mr. Chairman. To go further on that, again I reiterate the point that I raised before. Apparently, Senator Gomez does not know the difference between a clinic and a hospital. In a clinic you do not bed down patients, Mr. Chairman, and apparently Senator Gomez is not aware of that fact. I have just brought out the fact that after a certain hour that clinic is closed to the public. You have to find the nurse or doctor wherever they might be. And you might be running around for the next two or three hours before you find one of them.
Mr. Chairman, I still want to go on record as asking this Body to support a new hospital in St. John.

MRS. MILLIN: Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Senator Millin.

MRS. MILLIN: Mr. Chairman, I don't think that Senator Gomez means to be as harsh about St. John as his expressions sometimes indicate. I think it is that he doesn't know St. John well enough. You take the distance between Coral Bay and Cruz Bay, it's about 8 or 9 miles from Cruz Bay to Coral Bay. Look at the case that took place in Cruz Bay which Senator Moorehead reported. Probably that woman came from many many miles away.
This is what I would say; the small building that is the clinic at Cruz Bay should be so fixed that for cases like these it should be kept open on a 24-hour basis. And that would relieve a lot of the suffering that those people go through. I am of St. John and I am of St. Thomas. I know the trouble; I know the difficulties. I could relate you of a case where a child fell at Coral Bay out of a tree and got her arm broken. For a long time she couldn't get to St. Thomas. When she got down they had to take off the arm, because somebody there ventured to set the bone together. They didn't know really what to do. When she came here, the next day the arm was taken off, a day or two after she died.
Now, if there had been something better—better roads, and a little place, maybe a small hospital, at Cruz Bay, that might not have happened. The way I feel is this: whatever they have at Cruz Bay should be improved.

THE PRESIDENT: Do we have any further privileges of the floor?

MR. ANDUZE: Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Senator Anduze.

MR. ANDUZE: Mr. President, along that line, I'd like to make a suggestion: when the time comes, when the Health Department comes down here to discuss the budget, I don't think it would be difficult for us to put up to them the idea of looking for a resident physician for St. John on the same basis as they've been getting resident physicians for the hospitals for St. Croix and St. Thomas. There is a building there already, the one referred to by Senator Moorehead, at the clinic, and it shouldn't be difficult to convert that or add more room to make space for patients who cannot get to St. Thomas. To Be Continued.