Foreign Firms Vie To Manage OKEU Hospital

THE Owen King-European Union Hospital (OKEUH) will not be managed by a team of locals when it becomes fully operational, hopefully by the end of this year.

Prime Minister Allen Chastanet made the disclosure recently, stating that government has been in discussion with several overseas organizations to manage and operate the hospital.

“Several groups have put proposals together that we are looking at,” Chastanet said.

Chastanet said a Canadian firm, one from the Cayman Islands — called Health City –, a French group and others have all had discussions with government relating to managing and operating the OKEU Hospital.

The hospital will be operated as a statutory body, very similar to St. Jude Hospital.

The Prime Minister wants a new culture of service at the OKEU Hospital and seems adamant that what transpires at Victoria Hospital will not obtain in the new hospital.

“I do not believe in taking all the staff from Victoria and taking them to the OKEUH is going to solve the problem,” he said.

He described the operating procedures at St. Jude Hospital and Victoria Hospital as night and day, explaining that St. Jude ensures that it receives its money from patients billed while at Victoria Hospital that is not the case.

“The culture that obtains at St. Jude is much better in terms of its own sustainability,” Chastanet said.