By ANNELIA NIXON

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamian healthcare provider yesterday said its $7m investment has transformed the Eleuthera Medical Centre into the island's first hospital with operations due to start today.

Dr Arlington Lightbourne, the founder and chief executive of Bahamas Wellness Health System, said the Palmetto Point-based Eleuthera Wellness Hospital, a five-bed facility that will provide ground and air ambulances, 96-Slice CT scan, a hemo-dialysis unit and diagnostic services, has met Joint Commission International (JCI) standards - “the global benchmark for hospital quality and patient safety".

Through partnerships with regional and international healthcare leaders, he added that the facility will ensure its systems, training and patient outcomes meet world class standards. Care will be affordable and accessible through the Diamond Care medical plan.

“Our full suite of services, including installation of our 96-Slice CT scan, will be rolled out over the coming weeks as we prepare for our grand celebration on November 28, 2025, where we would welcome Eleutherans, alongside national and international stakeholders, to celebrate this achievement together,” Dr Lightbourne said.

“Eleuthera Wellness Hospital anchors a connected island-wide healthcare network with satellite urgent care centres in Spanish Wells, which is in North Eleuthera, and Rock Sound in South Eleuthera. And this ensures that no Eleutheran, and no visitor to Eleuthera or nearby island, is ever without access to quality emergency or specialty care.

“Our services will include a 24-hour emergency room staffed by highly-trained physicians, nurses and technicians, supported by a growing fleet of advanced life support ground ambulances and augmented by air ambulance partnerships with MASA Assist and JetICU, making local and international air transport for critical care cases easier than ever before," he added.

"Comprehensive diagnostics, including a complete laboratory ultra-sound, echocardiogram, mammogram, digital X-ray and our soon-to-be commissioned 96-Slice CT scan and a five-bed... short stay admission unit for hospital level care close to home.”

As the first and only hospital on Eleuthera, Dr Lightbourne said urgent care access will be expanded from 5pm to 9pm with emergency care available past that time. Beginning on December 1, “it will be fully staffed by certified emergency trained physicians, nurses and technicians, round the clock”.

There are currently 40 employed medical staff including physicians, nurses and trained EMS (emergency medical services) personnel, and those numbers are expected to grow over the next few months. The hospital has two advanced life support equipped ambulances, and is seeking to expand its fleet as well as partner with MASA Assist which provides air ambulance services from Eleuthera into Nassau, and JetICU into the US.

Dr Lightbourne said the level of investment is “north of $7m” with funding coming largely from a private share offering. Charles Sealy, chairman of Bahamas Wellness Hospital and Clinics, said that with two urgent care centres and a primary care facility, the hospital provides Eleuthera residents with advanced medical care.

“Today is a proud day for Eleuthera, for The Bahamas, and indeed, for our organisation,” Mr Sealy said. “What began as a vision to bring quality, accessible healthcare to the island has now grown beyond a clinic into a facility, one capable of providing hospital level services to the community of Eleuthera.

"For generations, families and those, of course, who came to our shores in Eleuthera have faced challenges in accessing advanced medical care. Too often, our people have had to travel long distances to New Providence for essential diagnostic tests or even hospital services.

"This expansion changes that story. It means that care is not only closer, but it's also stronger, it's faster and it's more comprehensive. It means parents can take their children nearby when they need urgent attention, and our elderly do not need to endure the stress of transfer for services that we can now provide right on island.”

Dr Leonardo Culmer, chief clinical officer, added: “[I] got a call from Dr Lightbourne, and we talked, and because we knew each other very well, and he was someone that I called a friend, we decided to make that move. It is on that basis we have what we have here today, with a strong cadre of participants, executive persons, board of directors, doctors and nurses and a community that is very grateful for the services that we offer.

"And we are equally grateful to be able to offer them. So it's good for me to know that where my mother and father grew up, I am now, and we are now a part of that system, that nexus that offers emergency care. There are many people who would otherwise have to go to Nassau, and the cost was devastating on their families. It was destroying families. That's the solution that we foresaw, and that's what we're happy to be a part of.”