Angelo Laurence, Gleaner Writer
The Hargreaves Hospital in Manchester is facing serious financial difficulties. - PHOTO BY ANGELO LAURENCE
THE 82-YEAR-OLD Hargreaves Hospital has fallen on hard times and is facing closure if its board of governors fails to come up with $9.6 million to satisfy its indebtedness to RBTT Bank.
The hospital is one of a handful of community hospitals left in the island and was the main health care facility for workers in the bauxite sector up until the early 1980s.
It also served as an alternative to the Mandeville Regional Hospital until the latter's multimillion dollar upgrading four years ago.
DEMANDING SETTLEMENT
In a letter to the hospital dated September 29 from the bank's attorney, Rose Ann Davis, the hospital was given 30 days to pay the $9.6 million dollars, or the property would be sold.
The hospital's board chairman, Stafford Haughton, confirmed to The Gleaner that RBTT is demanding settlement of the debt. However, Mr. Haughton said that the board has sourced funding to satisfy the debt by this Friday.
He said that the loan fell behind after 30 doctors who used the facility stopped servicing the loan, which was taken out in 2003.
The doctors, he said, were paying back 30 per cent of the loan and the remainder by the hospital.
According to Mr. Haughton, the doctors stopped servicing the loan as it had been agreed that they would only pay for two years.
Hargreaves Hospital, which employs 55 workers, is said to be heavily indebted, owing about $34 million to a number of Government agencies. Creditors and the various utility companies are also owed more than $30 million.
A member of the hospital's board of governors, who asked not to be named, told The Gleaner that the hospital's financial woes have been on the horizon from the late 1980s and worsened since then.
He attributed the poor financial state of the hospital to "some doctors and other interests" whom he claims,"want to buy up the property for their own gain".
RESTRUCTURING PLAN
However, Board Chairman Stafford Haughton would not comment on that matter, only to say that a restructuring plan is being finalised that will see the management of the institution moving from a board of governors to a board of directors.
This will make room for a "change of ownership status" he said, which will bring in investors as stakeholders.
In the meantime, a high level meeting is being planned to inform the staff of the status of the hospital as they are worried about their jobs.
