By Caribbean Medical News Staff
With the opening of the high-tech Health City Hospital in Cayman Islands last year, Barbadians are being encouraged to use the facility’s specialised services at the 104 bed facility and especially in cardiology and paediatric care.
The hospital is run by 30 doctors who originated in Bangalore. Health City is currently using a health model conceptualized by world renowned cardiologist Dr. Davi Shetty who is also known as an innovator in the medical and other fields.
Marketing Director, Shomari Scott said that Health City Cayman is ready to partner with the Barbados Queen Elizabeth Hospital and other facilities with a view to offering services and specialized skills that may not be readily available in Barbados. He made his comments while on a visit to the island.
While suggesting that care in Barbados was exemplary, Scott said that the Cayman Island’s facility was still looking for partnership arrangements with like-minded health officials in the Caribbean region and in Latin America.
“We are definitely going to be discussing the potential for us to partner in the area of paediatric endocrinology”, he said.
According to him, apart from cardiology which was just one of the many top surgeries offered, the hospital was known for its success in paediatric endocrinology.
“We have never had tertiary cardiac care in the Cayman. If someone needed cardiac care you would have to wait three to four hours for an air ambulance and as one doctor says, time is muscle. When that muscle begins to die, then the standard of living for the person is drastically reduced. In Health City, they are able to deal with persons within an hour… if not 15 minutes,” said Scott.
He stated to press officials that the partnerships in Barbados would depend on Barbados’ existing health model.
“Depending on the island this may be either through the government, the major hospital on island or can include the insurance companies as well. Some countries have a lot of private insurers that send their patients with cardiac care to the USA, so we would speak to those companies, other countries have universal health care where the government covers everything, even if they need to send the case abroad. And in other countries, the government may not be able to cover it and a person, not having insurance, foot the bill out of pocket in order to have cardiac care. We will also fill that gap. At the end of the day the costs are such that each entity will be able to afford it,” Scott said.
Poised for medical tourism, the hospital has also been in discussions with tourism and health officials throughout the region and has already carried out successful cardiac interventions since it opened its doors officially including an emergency procedure on a cruise ship passenger.
The hospital is currently going through an impressive expansion phase which includes a University.
