Gov’t injecting $2.5M towards medical tourism
Premier and Minister of Finance Andrew Fahie made the announcement while delivering the budget address in the House of Assembly on Tuesday.
“This essential investment is critical to ensuring that the BVIHSA is able to collect sufficient revenue to meet all of its obligations,” he said.
The Premier said once medical tourism starts generating sufficient revenue,
The NHI receives a yearly allocation of $42 million from the BVI’s annual
“Your government has also provided an additional $5 million to NHI as the balance of the Seed funding that was due since the beginning of the scheme, thereby bringing the total allocation to $47 million this year,” Premier Fahie said.
A total of $60,552,125 has been allocated to the Ministry of Health this year. This equates to 10.2% of this year’s $426 million budget.
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Just what is “medical tourism?
Its wasted money. Why not inject that money into getting things right first before we plunge into medical tourism. Healthcare should not be about the money that can be made. It should be about offering the best services needed.
Forget that …..they jave employees 6 7 years plus working at the same salary. No increase whatsover but the workload sure did.
This is just crazy talk. We send our people away to get treatment which is better and cheaper elsewhere – and we think foreigners will pay good money to come to BVI for medical treatment which is both expensive and of poor quality? Just crazy.
Almost as bad a decision as the NDP’s decision to give $7.2m away for an invisible airline….Medical tourism will not be successful here never mind generating lots of income to fund the health care and this will be a waste of $2.5m. Unwise decision Mr Fahie – you better start getting much better council and advice soon as this isn’t a good start!
“Medical tourism will not be successful here never mind generating lots of income to fund the health care and this will be a waste of $2.5m.” That’s a matter of your opinion! People like you need to stop being so blasted negative with your un-fruitful comments! Quit cursing the place that you call home and SPEAK LIFE INSTEAD OF DEATH!
Women come for new breasts and lips. How exactly does that help the National Health Insurance. Going to tax the new titties?
It’s a business and these are a couple of the things that happen in this area of business. so, if the women come here to do that then that’s money to the BVIHSA that the Government proper won’t have to give them.
Maybe it’s a start to introduce medical cannabis and than the tourist with cards would be able to enjoy there self when here without worry.
You all are just blind and one-sided. Nothing is wrong with medical tourism where individuals come from other countries for healthcare because it may be cheaper and better than their home country. So stop the fussing and fighting because financial services is on the brink of failing and we have a long way to go in bringing back tourism, where it was prior the disasters. Change is good just await the outcome before you criticize.
I agree nothing is wrong with wanting medical tourism. My problem is fix the system first. At this point in time quality healthcare is not being provided.
Hopefully it will mean we get some good doctors, we don’t even have a heart doctor or enough dentists.
This story is misleading. The BVIHSA should explain that the funding is earmarked for accreditation of the hospital (i.e. ensuring that it can meet international quality standards) and a health information system that would make the system work better for locals and visitors alike. This would contribute to medical tourism but the improvements are mostly to benefit the local population.
Free the weed
Too many islands are already offering medical tourism. Why jump on the bandwagon? Surely it would be better to find our own niche? The world is moving to ecotourism. What if we focussed our efforts on making the Bvi sustainable and lead rather than always following?
cause u build a $300m hospital 10x the size needed. need to leverage
Dunno much, but do know that BVIHSA is run by the most incompetent people imaginable. Giving them $2.5 million extra means that much more to waste.
Tattersall done pretty good over the years selling t*t jobs and tans in the same package deal.