Every Independence season, the nation is given a theme—this year’s being “Solid. Stable. Soaring.” But if Antigua & Barbuda wants truth instead of tagline, there is only one theme that captures the reality the people are living:
“In life and in death… you are on your own.”
Nothing exposes the collapse of governance under the Browne administration more clearly than healthcare — or what remains of it.
Clinics closed.
Cancer patients abandoned.
No PET scan machine on the entire island.
Autopsies delayed for months.
Psychiatric patients dying without answers.
Cemeteries desecrated and mismanaged.
This is not a sector in trouble. This is a nationwide humanitarian failure.
⸻
CLINICS CLOSED. COMMUNITIES STRANDED. A GOVERNMENT SILENT.
The All Saints Clinic — remains closed. Other community clinics operate in partial shutdown or no longer function at all.
Healthcare is not optional. Illness does not pause because government competence does.
When clinics close, diabetics go untreated, pregnant mothers skip monitoring, seniors miss vital care, basic illnesses become emergencies.
A government that cannot keep clinics open has no right to declare the nation “stable.”
⸻
THE CANCER CENTRE IS CLOSED — BUT CANCER IS NOT.
The shuttering of the Antigua & Barbuda Cancer Centre stands as one of the darkest public-health failures in our history.
Cancer patients now face no radiotherapy, no continuity of treatment, no affordable local care, and no official plan for restoration.
Families must beg, borrow, or go bankrupt to seek care abroad. Others simply cannot — and they deteriorate in silence.
“Stable”?
No. This is state-sanctioned suffering.
⸻
ZERO PET SCAN MACHINES — IN A COUNTRY BEING SOLD AS A MEDICAL HUB
Antigua & Barbuda wants to market itself as a rising star in medical tourism. Yet in 2025, the entire nation does not have a single PET scan machine.
PET scans are essential for early cancer detection, accurate staging, guiding treatment identifying metastasis.
Without PET scan capability, early cancers become late cancers, survival rates plummet, treatment becomes guesswork and preventable deaths increase.
A nation cannot flatter itself as “soaring” when it cannot diagnose cancer at internationally basic standards.
⸻
AUTOPSIES DELAYED. FAMILIES TRAUMATIZED. DIGNITY DENIED.
A grieving Guyanese father has publicly begged for the autopsy of his late son — just to bury him.
This is not an anomaly. Autopsies in Antigua are notorious for taking weeks, months, sometimes longer.
Delayed autopsies mean families cannot find closure, burials are postponed, insurance claims freeze, criminal investigations stall and trauma is compounded.
A government that cannot guarantee dignity in death has failed at the most fundamental moral duty of all.
⸻
THE MENTAL HEALTH EMERGENCY: A CRISIS HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
Clearview Hospital: Where Vulnerability Meets Neglect
Clearview, Antigua’s psychiatric institution, has long been plagued by: allegations of mistreatment; unsafe working conditions; chronic understaffing; reports of unexplained deaths; and a government with zero urgency to investigate or reform.
Psychiatric patients — the people most in need of protection — have been effectively abandoned.
Mental Illness on the Streets
Every day, Antiguans witness scenes that should haunt any functioning government: mentally ill citizens wandering barefoot in traffic; men and women sleeping on sidewalks, in bus stops, on storefront steps; individuals in psychosis, untreated, unmedicated, unsupported.
Meanwhile, Ministers drive past in tinted SUVs, windows up, pretending not to see.
Youth Psychosis and the Mismanaged Cannabis Regime
By pushing marijuana without education, safeguards, or mental-health services, the government helped create a tragedy among vulnerable youth: psychosis cases rising; teenagers in mental collapse; once vibrant young men now “walking dead” on the streets.
Legalization without infrastructure is not reform. It is negligence dressed as progress.
⸻
A GOVERNMENT THAT FAILS THE LIVING CANNOT HONOUR THE DEAD
Nowhere is the collapse more visible — or more shameful — than in cemetery management.
Fort Road Cemetery: A Historic Burial Ground Desecrated
Our ancestors taught us reverence for burial grounds, but under this administration, the historic Cemetery at Fort Road — land set aside over 100 years ago for the burial of Black Antiguans — has become a disgrace:
• rubbish dumped across graves
• sheep wandering freely
• broken headstones
• overgrown, neglected grounds
• no upkeep, no respect, no presence of the State
A cemetery is sacred. This government treats it like Cooks.
Who “maintains” burial grounds in Antigua?
The CBH — the agency that collects garbage.
How a government assigns responsibility reveals how it values the task. This administration sees no difference between waste disposal and burial of the dead.
Tranquility Park Becomes Tranquility Pool
Tranquility Park was promoted as the modern, dignified national cemetery Antiguans were promised for years.
Instead, this is what we got:
• a cemetery that floods after a simple rainfall
• graves threatened by stagnant water
• inadequate drainage
• no chapel as promised
• no spiritual facilities
• landscaping unfinished
• no public accounting of its true cost
What was marketed as tranquility has become a symbol of incompetence.
⸻
THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH HAS BECOME THE MINISTRY OF DEATH
Let us speak plainly:
• Clinics? Closed.
• Cancer treatment? Collapsed.
• Diagnostic systems? Outdated and inadequate.
• Autopsies? Delayed beyond reason.
• Psychiatric care? Dangerous and failing.
• Cemeteries? Disrespected and mismanaged.
This is not a health system. It is a national emergency.
This administration has transformed the Ministry of Health into something unrecognizable — a Ministry of Death.
Lives are being lost.
Families are being broken.
Dignity is being stripped away.
The living are abandoned.
The dead are dishonored.
And the government continues to boast about “soaring.”
A nation cannot soar when its people cannot access medical care; its cancer patients have nowhere to turn, its youth descend into untreated mental illness; its families cannot bury their dead; its cemeteries are treated like garbage heaps.
This administration is not solid.
It is not stable.
It is certainly not soaring.
It is failing where it matters most: the health, dignity, and humanity of its people.
content is here
