Former health minister Dr Fuad Khan who admitted to having shares in a private hospital told the Guardian the increases are “equitable to paying a dollar to use the toilet in Maracas when the people collecting the dollar gets paid at $30 an hour.”
He said with 10 major private medical institutions in the country, “the Minister will collect less than one million dollars. It is a stupid, nuisance tax. It will cost him more to collect the increase,” he said.
Private hospitals are governed by the Private Hospitals Act of 1965 and Finance Minister Colm Imbert said currently all private hospitals pay a standard flat fee of $150 a year.
The schedule in the act details six categories of private facilities, medical or surgical hospital, medical surgical and maternity hospital, maternity hospital, hospital for the convalescent or chronically ill and hospital for any designated or specified disease, disorder of illness.
Under the Act, institutions with less than 30 beds pay between $75 and $100, 30 beds but less than 60 pay between $100 and $225 and six beds and over pay between $150 and $300.
Khan said without the private nursing homes “the public health sector would explode,” because they just cannot deal with the number of patients who seek medical care. This, he said, would put an increased burden on an already over-burdened public health system.
He felt no real thought went into the measure saying if the Minister was “serious he would have said pay one million dollars if you want to open a private nursing home.”
Khan feared that as a result of the measure, private nursing homes will increase their fees “and people will pay more to use a nursing home.”
Managers of some private health facilities have indicated that the increased fees will be passed on to patients, “the room/bed price will increase.”
Private medical hospitals
St Clair Medical Centre
West Shore Medical Centre
Southern Medical Centre
Gulf View Medical Centre
Victoria Nursing Home
Surgi Med Clinic
Valsayn Medical Centre
St Augustine Private Hospital
Stanley’s Clinic
Medical Associates Hospital
Barrackpore Medical Centre and Private Hospital