Public tender for review of hospital business plan

GREAT BAY – Finance Minister Richard Gibson and Public Health Minister Emil Lee have put out a public tender for a second review of the strategic business plan for the St. Maarten Medical Center, version 3.0.

Bids must be submitted no later than Friday, October 14 at noon. The same day, at 12.30 p.m., bids will be opened and checked for admissibility. The contract will be awarded by October 21.

The tender is part of efforts to get approval from financial supervisor Cft for the financing of the new hospital, SZV-director Glen Carty said.

Part of the conditions the Cft has set for approval of the loan is the second opinion about the business plan for the hospital. Furthermore, the parliament must approve healthcare reform before the end of this year and establish the National Health Insurance. “That will be a challenge,” Carty admitted, “but all stakeholders are busy with it right now.”

The Cft also demands that the 2016 budget is realized as planned – that is to say, without deficits, and that the government’s 2017 budget is realistic and balanced.

“We received a check list from the Cft,” Carty said. “The loan for the hospital will be considered as a separate case, outside the regular capital budget. But we have to meet the prerequisites.”

Carty is on loan to SZV from telecom provider UTA Eastern Caribbean until June 2017. “My decree says that I will be there until there is another director,” Carty says. “I was appointed by the previous government and when Minister Lee took office he asked me to stay to complete SZV 3.0. My tenure has nothing to do with the Government Administration Building or the construction of the hospital. Those issues came along the way.”

Carty said that he too has heard that the UP wants to appoint MP Cornelius de Weever who did not win a seat in the new parliament as the new SZV-director. If that move becomes a reality it is almost a given that Dr. Lloyd Richardson will become the new minister of Public Health, Social Development and Labor.

“There will be a new government soon and it depends on the new minister of Public Health if they want to replace me. But it is also possible to replace me as soon as possible,” Carty said. “But until then, I will keep doing my work here.”