A handover and signing ceremony was held at the Harbourside Medical Facility, now under the purview of the Public Hospitals Authority, on Wednesday. The property was purchased by the government from Doctors Hospital at a cost of $29 million.
Minister of Health and Wellness, the Hon. Dr. Michael Darville said the new facility will bridge the gap between costly private and traditional public care. He said, “we intend to put in place state of the art diagnostics, a lab, and to renovate this facility to decompress many of the challenges we currently face at the Princess Margaret Hospital with our new urgent care facility and most of that renovations will begin probably early as next week.”
The renovations are expected to cost approximately $215,000. Inline Project Company has been selected to carry out renovations to the facility.
Public Hospitals Authority, Andrew Edwards assured that the facility will generate revenue. He explained, “95% plus of the PHA budget comes from the Public Treasury. We are competing every day with education, with all of the roads, the infrastructure, every other social service that the government provides, government salaries etc., and PHA really needs to find new and unique ways to generate revenue. The model that we have is not sustainable and we see the results of it everyday.”
Doctors Hospital President, Dr. Charles Diggis said the transfer of the facility to PHA speaks to an ongoing partnership with the government. “Now that the PHA has removed this significant asset from us, I must say painfully. The pain was muted, of course, by the payment for it but there are many more opportunities and initiatives in the future,” Dr. Diggis said.
The facility includes 46 private beds, urgent outpatient and ambulatory care and emergency dialysis.
