BVI News

Privatise hospital, airport and gaming commission — Skelton Cline

The Dr D Orlando Smith Hospital in Road Town.

Commentator and clergyman Claude Skelton Cline said he believes the Dr D Orlando Smith Hospital, the Gaming Commission, and the and Terrance B Lettsome International Airport should all be privatised.

“These three entities, I believe will be better served in private industry hands,” Skelton Cline said on the Honestly Speaking radio show yesterday.

“Those three entities should be profit centres,” he reasoned.

According to Skelton Cline, the hospital is currently taking upwards of $50 million from the government’s coffers.

“That is unsustainable,” he insisted.

Private partners wouldn’t have unilateral control

Skelton Cline said while he is open to being convinced otherwise, private hospitals exist across the globe where there is proper regulation.

He further argued that the hospital’s privatised structure should not mean that it is unilaterally left up to private industry to take advantage of customers and the working poor but be established in a framework that lends itself to proficiency, efficiency, deliberate and exceptional services in the healthcare industry.

“I don’t got to wait for no COI report and I don’t got to wait for the UK or nobody to tell us nothing about what needs to be done. I am here to tell us that we, our fore-parents have always had their thinking caps on. I don’t know why we took ours off,” he stated.

According to Skelton Cline, the BVI needs to ‘get ahead of the curve’ on the issue.

Gaming industry not about faith and religion

Meanwhile, he also suggested that profits that derive from the Gaming Commission, if it were privatised, needed to be tied to the education sector’s development.

The Gaming & Betting Control Act was passed in 2020 and the government just last month issued a tender notice for consultancy services for the commission.

According to the government release, the objectives of the consultancy are to develop procedures applicable to the operations of the commission, develop regulations for governing the operations of gaming activities in the BVI, and provide general consulting services to assist the commission in complying with its duty to regulate and oversee the Virgin Islands’ gaming and betting industry.

“It’s not anything new, we’ve seen it. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen some of the best practices in the region and indeed the world and I would think that we should just extrapolate, extract and retrofit for that which fits our footprint to move this country, accelerate the progress of this country,” the clergyman contended.

Skelton Cline argued that the issue of faith being involved in the gaming commission was besides the point.

“Governance is about a country, not pastoring your church, or being an imam or your mosque – that ain’t what I’m here for, that ain’t what this is,” the clergyman argued.

“It needs to be in private hands, it needs to be one of the sources that underpin the funding for education,” he added.

The talk show host also said the BVI has been complaining about the Terrance B Lettsome International Airport on Beef Island and about lengthening its runway for years but he said “it’s time out for that”.

 

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30 Comments

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  1. sturpss says:

    Sure lets privatize the main hospital for the territory so that it cost you 2-3 thousand dollars to call an ambulance like the states. Why the government incapable of being proficient and efficient?

    Like 48
    • Lmfao says:

      The fake clergy wants to privatize so he can own and control a piece of everything. He’ll be charging you for air soon. Oh, I forgot he already does. Makes you pay when you sit in his church and spouts hot air. Lmfao

      Like 37
    • Iris says:

      A well managed government should be able to operate a hospital and certainly a landing field. This isn’t rocket science. The hospital is essential to our health care and the airport is essential to our tourism industry. Your can’t sell those to the highest bidder and expect to continue to control your destiny. What we need is a long term plan. Where are we going and how are we going to get there. That’s all.

      Like 11
      • Faith says:

        @Iris
        Well said. What this Country need is a long term plan and people with a vision. For Christ sake, move the country forward and stop the self serving stupidity.

        Like 5
        Dislike 1
    • Suzie says:

      I KNEW IT! Nothing else makes any sense. Tax payers again foot the bill to handover state of the art facility to private so they can be charged up the backside for health care.

  2. lol says:

    I guarantee if you privatize the hospital NHI belly up that same year.

    Like 24
  3. Son of the Land says:

    There are persons here hellbent on bringing gambling business on the Territory

    Like 14
  4. TurtleDove says:

    I got a lot of negativity when I said the population was too small for NHI, well this proposal will make things worse.

    The people that had insurance and wanted to keep them should have been able to do so and the table set by government for them to keep them.

    Then the government should have concentrated on the people in smaller businesses without insurance and others without insurance and fix that population. Instead they throw out the baby with the bathwater and now the baby is crying as expected.

    The government should have left things alone and create a safety net for the uninsured mandating they will be get same treatment at a cost negotiated between government and business.

    The Governments approach should have been if you want to do business in the BVI you have to contribute to its growth and wellbeing. Similar to Medicare/Medicaid

  5. UKM says:

    What can we do so that Claude Skelton Cline will just go away and shut up?

    Like 44
  6. WONDERFUL says:

    SO NO WONDER THEY DONATING 4 MIL ? THE WHITE LADY IS LAYING DOWN HER ROOTS IN THESE DEVIOUS MINDED SHARKS THAT IS RUNNING THE COUNTRY/ WE IN TROUBLE

    Like 4
    Dislike 1
  7. Stupes says:

    CSC shut the h**l up and go away

    Like 17
  8. 1EYE says:

    Cline Shut up. This is what’s wrong, you bring your foreign ideas here and don’t have any context. Our health care system is based on public free health care why would we copy a failed american system. Shut up. Ronnie Skelton ruined health care around here during his political run. You guys need to fall all the way back.

    Like 18
  9. King ofrece king says:

    they can peivatsarla, but they should remove all those healthy doctors who only know how to give a single pill to all the patients who go, and those doctors only know how to work for the red cross first aid

  10. Hmmmm says:

    People are reacting because it’s Claude making the statement but he is absolutely correct. The reality is that government does NOT belong in certain businesses. Where something like the hospital is privatized, legislation would be in place along with agreements as it relates to fees etc. so it won’t be a free for all for whoever is involved. Such a deal would also see Government giving some level of subvention, perhaps $20 Mil but not the $50 mil that’s being done now. It will be done properly and remove a lot of the waste that we have. You see, many people complain about the end result but are happy with the way things are because everyone gets their way and gets paid whether they work or not. Like Claude or not, but these are some of the same things the UK will be recommending so let’s see what you will say then.

    Like 3
    Dislike 21
  11. Concerned says:

    Foolish comments made by CSC today, yet again.

    Like 13
  12. Citizen says:

    They are already privatized they are called HSA, and BVIAA.

    Like 10
  13. Privatisation says:

    This is where something belongs to You the People, which is then sold, and the You the People have to pay to use it again.

    No to private healthcare thank you.

    No to privatising the airport (it will never make money and will need to be bailed out by government)

    No to gambling full stop. Gambling is a license to print money, it is divisive and offers no up-side to the community. If this is privatised it will be a mafia-run Las Vegas.

  14. Citizen says:

    When you can’t manage, better step down by yourself and people of BVI would remove you in the next election

  15. Citizen says:

    When you can’t manage, better step down by yourself and people of BVI would remove you in the next election

  16. Foolish says:

    CSK is a gas bag and should use his breath to power hot air balloons instead. He offers no justification regarding the privatization of the health service other than it costs $ 50 million a year for a country of 30,000. Smacks of mismanagement to me. There is no evidence that private management is any better than public management in the Territory. Making health care a profit center in the US has not worked for the public. Many have had to face personal bankruptcy as a result of outrageous medical costs, and have lost their life savings. What is instead needed are competent people running a medical system designed to heal people not squeeze them out of their savings. And, CSK has obviously forgotten the bit about the poor in the Bible. How would they ever afford to be treated?

    Privatize the airport, and you can forget direct commercial flights as landing fees will increase due to lack of traffic and hence inability to have monies for maintaining it.

    Privatize the Gaming Commission? Might as well turn over gambling to organized crime.

  17. rastarite says:

    This fake pastor is under intense scrutiny for taking huge consultancy fees and returning nothing in the way of good advice. Now he is advocating the people pay for healthcare – National health insurance is a saving grace for those with debilitating disease. This guy needs to GO!! He is not serving the people!!

  18. Collection says:

    Let’s take up a collection to send this jacka** back to Detroit. I’m in for $5. More than he’s worth, but I’ll be generous.

    Like 7
    Dislike 1
  19. We have the biggest Hospital in the world.. says:

    Remember the Panama Paper, that call us corrupt and irresponsible with spending, “Our Hospital they claimed is over sized for our population or by population it’s the biggest Hospital in the world. So neither the Governor or the COI are the first to see us as corrupt and irresponsible,,So we need private Hospital our Hospital has enough space for a proper Cardiac dept, including, Angiogram, stenting, etc, also enough space for a proper cancer treatment dept, these two are where most of our NHI money is spent overseas, Invest in our own. It’s the right thing to do, Instead of exporting our sick, we will be importing sick for some of these expensive treatments…

  20. Not a good idea says:

    Let’s just make an already bad situation worse. Why don’t we start looking at the boards who are over these places and how most of the members especially the airport have no knowledge on the field.BVIAA for instance Oh shoot one does and he went to jail for stealing from there. Guess that is enough experience!Stop dancing around the issues.

  21. lol says:

    Can we get our million dollars back in the Treasury please and thank you.

  22. Shaun says:

    Pastor Cr**k says what?

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