The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Building a brand-new “world class” hospital to replace the Princess Margaret (PMH) facility demands a $750 million to $1 billion investment, a sum requiring that it be done via a “four-pronged” development strategy.

Fred Perpall, the incoming Bahamian chief executive of US-based real estate developer, The Beck Group, told Tribune Business yesterday that the PMH Critical Care Block facility was the first stage in plans to completely overhaul Nassau’s public hospital.

Beck is the lead designer for the project, and Mr Perpall said that when completed the Critical Care Block would give the Bahamas a facility “second to none” in the Caribbean.

Explaining that redeveloping PMH in one go would require a sum equivalent to four times’ the Government’s entire annual capital expenditure budget of $250 million, Mr Perpall said it had no choice but to overhaul the hospital in stages.

As a result, the Government and project team had proceeded with the Critical Care Block first because it dealt with “threshold of life issues” - saving lives through its six operating rooms and intensive care unit (ICU) spaces.

“This is the first prong in a four-prong strategy to redevelop the whole hospital,” Mr Perpall told Tribune Business. “It seems like the Bahamian community needs a brand new hospital.

“A brand new hospital would be in the $750 million to $1 billion price range to replace everything you have at a world class level.”

Acknowledging that this made it impossible to finance, unless private sector capital and investors were brought into the picture, Mr Perpall said there were “many different models” for carrying out the redevelopment.

“The Government has chosen a transformation strategy that the public needs to be patient with, and understand what the strategies are,” Mr Perpall said.

“The world class operating theatres, critical care facilities will be second to none in the region, and hopefully this will be the first of a four-prong development to transform the whole PMH campus.”