If a government is repeatedly unable to meet important deadlines, the least it can do is maintain a consistent message about why.

The announcement of yet another - this time indefinite - delay in the opening of the Critical Care Block at Princess Margaret Hospital suggests this Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) administration does not agree with the above statement.

The much-anticipated facility was originally due to open almost a year ago, in July 2013. Several weeks after the May 2012 election, in which the PLP was victorious, the new Minister of Health Dr. Perry Gomez said the project was on schedule.

Fast-forward another year, and according to Gomez, everything was still in order, with construction work 80 percent complete.

When the private contractors asked for the handover to be delayed until October 2013 due to complications caused by underground utilities, the government was essentially handed a three-month extension to get the administrative details in order.

The official line remained that the facility would be ready to open "shortly" after being handed over. But then in December of last year, Gomez suddenly announced the opening would be delayed by an additional four months.

"The Critical Care Block," he said, "is probably not going to be open until around Easter (2014). It still needs a lot of time to get the place fully equipped and furnished. And then we'll be staffed. But there is staff in the pipelines."

Despite this last assurance, a few months later, Public Hospitals Authority Chairman Frank Smith announced that the holdup was not so much about equipment and furniture, as it was about "staffing challenges".

He said: "When you are talking about staffing the Critical Care Block and talking about the theatres being fully operational, we are talking about a full staff complement and, of course, when you are talking about the surgical ability that we are talking about for the Critical Care Block, we are going to need a lot of properly trained staff and qualified staff."

These are valid, but also quite obvious, concerns the administration had more than a year to prepare for. Two months later, Smith seems to have decided that the problem is not low staff numbers at all, nor is it equipment, but rather the readiness of "systems".

He said: "We are not opening an office building. We have to test systems... everything is being tested and retested. We want to make sure it's done right."

Equipment, furniture, staffing, systems. While the government continues to play musical chairs with its explanations and excuses, the public would do well to remember what is at stake in this matter.

The Critical Care Block was designed above all to address serious deficiencies in intensive neonatal care, in a country where infant mortality is still much higher than it should be.

The PLP must remember that the health and well being of the most vulnerable among us is not a matter to play games with.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian