A disturbing video captured on the Bahamian island of Mangrove Cay has sent shockwaves across social media, laying bare a years-long crisis in pre-hospital emergency care for the country’s outlying Family Islands. The 24-second clip shows a nurse riding in the rear of a private jeep, with her legs stretched out over a patient who was en route to be airlifted to the main hospital hub on New Providence for urgent care. This incident is far from isolated, and it has reignited fierce criticism of the Bahamian government’s failure to address longstanding healthcare inequities between the capital region and smaller outlying islands.
Mangrove Cay, which is part of the larger Andros island chain, has been without a single operational ambulance for more than 10 years, according to local nurses who spoke with Bahamas Nurses Union president Muriel Lightbourn after the video went viral. Lightbourn issued a scathing rebuke of what she called the “deplorable” state of healthcare across the Family Islands, questioning not only the quality of care that patients are forced to accept but also the safety risks placed on frontline nursing staff. “If something were to happen to the nurse while she was traveling in that private vehicle, would she even be covered by worker’s protections?” Lightbourn asked in an interview, adding that it is “so wrong” that residents of these smaller islands have grown accustomed to substandard emergency care.
Bahamas’ Minister of Health and Wellness Dr. Michael Darville acknowledged the ministry’s awareness of the viral video and the long-running ambulance shortage on Mangrove Cay and other Family Islands. He confirmed that the central government has already earmarked ambulances for Mangrove Cay and other affected islands, and that the rollout of a revised emergency medical services (EMS) system across the Family Islands will be implemented in phases. The Cabinet has already approved the purchase of 10 to 12 new ambulances, Darville explained. Once these new vehicles arrive in the more populous islands of New Providence and Grand Bahama, currently allocated ambulances from those regions will be reallocated to meet the needs of smaller outlying islands like Mangrove Cay.
Darville pushed back against claims that the government has failed the Andros region, noting that three new, fully operational ambulances are already serving residents at clinics across North, Central, and South Andros, including the Miriam Green clinic. Transport Minister Leon Lundy, who also serves as the Member of Parliament for Mangrove Cay and South Andros, acknowledged that local residents have every right to be frustrated by the persistent lack of emergency services. He told reporters that a new ambulance is expected to be deployed to Mangrove Cay once construction on the island’s local clinic is completed, and pledged to continue advocating for the reliable emergency healthcare that local residents deserve.
This viral incident is only the latest in a string of high-profile cases that have exposed the deep gaps in emergency care across the Family Islands. In September 2025, a critically ill woman on Long Island had to be carried to an awaiting air ambulance on the back of a flatbed truck in heavy pouring rain – even though two fully functional ambulances were parked unused on the island. After that incident and a subsequent fatal crash that also exposed inadequate emergency transport, Darville publicly promised that such dangerous, undignified scenes would become a thing of the past, claiming the era of moving critically injured patients on the backs of trucks to reach air ambulance hubs was over.