By Neil Hartnell

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government is paying $39m over a ten-year period to acquire the recently-completed Harbourside in-patient facility on East Bay Street from Doctors Hospital, it was revealed yesterday.

Dr Michael Darville, minister of health and wellness, told Tribune Business that the deal has been structured as a lease-to-own or purchase agreement with payments to the BISX-listed healthcare provider spread out over 120 months - likely to ease the burden on an already-stretched Public Treasury and taxpayer.

“The Harbourside medical hospital is a ten-year lease purchase agreement - 120 monthly payments with a total purchase price of $38.901m or thirty-eight million, nine hundred and two thousand, nine hundred and fifteen dollars,” the minister confirmed in response to this newspaper’s inquiries.

Dr Darville, in unveiling the deal to the House of Assembly earlier, said: “I would also like to inform this honourable House and the general public that final preparatory steps [are being taken] to occupy the new Harbourside East Bay Street, multi-bed hospital facility acquired from Doctors Hospital by the Ministry of Health and Wellness.

“This brand new facility was acquired by my ministry and I alluded to it during my last Budget debate communication.” Dr Darville did not respond to other Tribune Business questions on the move, including the rationale for the lease-to-purchase deal and what benefits it will deliver for the Bahamian people and public healthcare, plus what plans there are to ensure it is adequately staffed and resourced when the Government takes control.

Dennis Deveaux, Doctors Hospital’s chief financial officer, declined to comment when contacted by Tribune Business yesterday. He told this newspaper as recently as last month that the long-awaited Harbourside location in eastern New Providence will help to boost revenues and earnings for the BISX-listed healthcare provider’s 2026 financial year which closes at end-January.

“We completed Harbourside, our long-foreshadowed step down facility with 38 beds for the in-patient community, in 2025,” he confirmed. “We’ll see the income effects of that in fiscal year 2026 in our financial results.” The complex is just one of several multi-million dollar investments, including its Grand Bahama hospital, Village Road imaging cere and multiple clinics, that Doctors Hospital has undertaken in its current growth and expansion phase.

Speaking in December 2024, Mr Deveaux added: “Harbourside had quite a few changes to the scope of the facility to reflect what the needs are in the market. Those changes meant extra time was needed to build it. 

“We are now in the final hand over process with the contractor. We’re getting landscaping done, a decision on the parking capacity is almost complete. We’ll make a decision on when we feel ready to open that facility. It has 38 beds on-site. That’s critical capacity for New Providence. There’s a shortage of bed capacity.

“That facility is virtually complete. Our investors look at the use of cash. That [Harbourside] consumed a fairly significant use of cash. Our total construction costs for that facility roughly approximate what it took us to build the Grand Bahama hospital. It was a fairly significant investment in in-patient capacity in New Providence.” The Grand Bahama hospital’s price tag was pegged at around $25m.

Dr Darville revealed the Harbourside deal during the debate on a resolution to borrow $201.2m from a Chinese-state owned bank to finance the proposed new New Providence hospital to be constructed at Perpall Tract. Among other disclosures was that the flooring of Princess Margaret Hospital’s (PMH) kitchen “could possibly have collapsed” because its concrete structure was “spalling” - meaning it was chipping and flaking.

The minister affirmed that the kitchen will undergo a $5m renovation using a portion of the proceeds from the a $75m loan arranged by CIBC Caribbean. He added that design drawings for the new facility will be completed before year-end, and then the Public Hospitals Authority (PHA) will launch a tender bidding process to secure the contractor.

The kitchen’s dilapidated state meant meals for PMH patients were being cooked and prepared at the University of The Bahamas (UoB), then transported to New Providence’s public hospital. “With this CIBC loan now finalised, a contract will be awarded for the kitchen renovation at a value of just under $5m,” Dr Darville said.

“A lot of people ask why the kitchen is not renovated, as if it was a matter of going in there, cleaning and polishing and replacing aging equipment. Far from the truth. The scope of works includes major structural repairs to the flooring. Do you know that the concrete in the floor of the kitchen was spalling, and it possibly could have collapsed because of the age of the facility?

“So we have to replace the flooring, we have to replace the structural columns including the walls and procure brand new kitchen equipment to improve productivity, logistics and improve the outflow of service of that facility. The ministry’s quantity surveyor has confirmed the structural, plumbing and air conditioning (AC) designs are expected to be completed before the end of this year,” he added.

“You can rest assured, Madame Speaker and the Bahamian people, that shortly after a tender process will begin and a contract will be awarded by the PHA Board.” Dr Darville told the House of Assembly that the kitchen works had been delayed by the cost overruns incurred in overhauling PMH’s accident and emergency (A&E) unit.

“One of the challenges I had as minister with the renovations of A&E.. the projected costs ballooned by millions of dollars,” he said, although providing no figure. “It was impossible to finish one project before starting a second project at PMH. I’m very pleased that, very shortly, the long overdue work at the kitchen at PMH will begin.”

Dr Darville, asserting that he inherited the A&E project from the former Minnis administration, said: “I was dealt the cards necessary to complete the project. The project was under-funded, there were unforeseen circumstances during the renovations. The building itself was structurally unsound. In the midst of construction, the roof was compromised. As we begun to move the walls, we found more work, and more work, and more work.”

With the construction work both impacting and disrupting patient care and the work of PMH staff, Dr Darville said the A&E upgrades are now complete after “years of trial and tribulation with renovating aging infrastructure”. He added that the new unit will be occupied via a “phased approach” as recommended by medical and nursing staff, and said: “By the grace of God it’s now complete.”

Apart from the kitchen, Dr Darville said the CIBC loan will also be used to finance renovations to the hospital’s operating theatre floors and three floors in PMH’s “legacy unit”. The latter will involve a “long needed” dialysis unit, eye ward and eye theatre, and installation of an elevator linking the first and second floors.

A portion of the $75m facility will also be directed to the “Freeport health campus” and hospital upgrades in Grand Bahama, which Dr Darville conceded have experienced “difficulties” in obtaining the necessary funding. He added that the “recent capital injection” has resulted in design drawings and the procurement of “long lead items” moving more rapidly, with some 135 construction workers now said to be present on-site.