The Tribune

By NATARIO MCKENZIE Tribune Business Reporter nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net DOCTORS Hospital plans to invest in excess of $1 million to re-open its Western Medical Plaza facility, its president telling Tribune Business yesterday that the move could ultimately create up to 75 new jobs. Barry Rassin said the Blake Road facility would "fit right in" to the BISX-listed company's medical tourism and international outpatient program, given its proximity to Lynden Pindling International Airport (LPIA) and relatively secluded location. With some 16 per cent of Doctors Hospital's business coming from non-Bahamians, the BISX-listed health care provider is attempting to make serious inroads into that area and increase its proportion of foreign patients to 50 per cent. Doctor's Hospital closed Western Medical Plaza almost nine years ago due to a downturn in the economy. The company first attempted to sell it, but several potential deals fell through, and subsequently chose to lease it out to other medical services providers. Re-opening under a new name, the full service hospital will provide an emergency care unit to service the expanded population that now lives and works in western New Providence, as well as provide elective ambulatory surgery services for international patients seeking treatment in the Bahamas. Globally, medical tourism is a $2 billion-a-year industry, and Doctors Hospital continues to receive an increasing number of inquiries about elective procedures available to international patients. Mr Rassin told Tribune Business yesterday: "This is going to fit right in to our international patient program, because then we could bring our international patients into a quieter facility instead of into the acute care facility, so they have a greater feeling of personal service in that facility. "We would want to do our ambulatory surgery out there, so all those surgical cases that fly in could come to the Western Medical Plaza, get the procedure done, go to a hotel or go back home. It would make it much faster and convenient for international patients. The western community over the last 10 years has grown significantly, so we want to bring the services back for that group of people as well." Doctors Hospital will use existing staff as much as possible to complete the physical plant renovations and upgrades to Western Medical Plaza. It believes, though, that the development will generate additional full-time jobs for Bahamians. "We are going to start small because we can use staff from Doctors Hospital, which will help us to be very efficient as we grow the numbers. We would anticipate starting with around 20 new employees, and that could probably grow to around 75 when we are at full capacity," Mr Rassin said. Renovations have already begun at Western Medical Plaza, and all the services in the facility will be completely tested before patients are brought back in. The Board is optimistic Doctors Hospital will begin treating patients in western New Providence by the end of April 2012. Mr Rassin told Tribune Business: "We are going to re-open eight patient rooms, but we really want to bring in patients for either emergency care or for outpatient care. "They don't necessarily have to stay overnight, so it's going to be a lot greater numbers because primarily it's outpatient. For surgical, we're hoping by the second year get up to 150 to 200 surgical procedures." Doctors Hospital has begun aggressively working on its marketing strategy and campaign to attract its core target markets in the US, Canada and the Caribbean. The hospital already has a successful HIFU programme, which brings about 15 patients to the Bahamas each month. Its International Patient Department will market weight loss surgery with Dr Charles Diggiss, cosmetic surgery with Dr Greg Neil, and spinal fusion and hip and knee replacement procedures with Dr Valentine Grimes and a team of American surgeons. Doctors Hospital is also developing partnerships with Bahamian hotels that are suitable for accommodating surgical patients, and providing the level of concierge service that will be necessary. It is estimated that every international patient who travels to the Bahamas for treatment will bring as many as three family members or friends with them for support.