Interhealth Canada
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Interhealth Canada is an international provider of healthcare services specialising in orthopaedics and trauma. Its Head Office is located in Toronto with regional offices in Dubai, Kuwait and the United Kingdom.[1] Wilson Parasiuk was a director from 1994 to 2002.
The company designed, built, commissioned and initially operated the Royale Hayat Hospital which opened in November 2006.[2]
Turks and Caicos Islands
FirstCaribbean International Bank arranged US$124 million financing for the Turks and Caicos Islands Hospitals Public Private Partnership Project.[3] Dr. Denise Braithwaite-Tennant was appointed chief executive officer of the hospital in December 2020.[4]
The company has a 25-year contract to run a hospital from April 2010 as part of the National Health System on the Turks and Caicos Islands.[5] It built two surgical centres — one in Provo with 20 beds and the other in Grand Turk with 10 beds — under a public-private partnership for which they are paid $80 million annually.[6] In January 2014, it was reported that a supplementary allocation of $6.2 million was required by the Ministry of Health to meet further cost of services delivery by the company.[7] This is a level two hospital so there is an arrangement for nurses to spend six months in the hospital at the University of the West Indies to complete their training.[8]
Their operation, which enables Canadians to travel to the Islands for treatment, has been criticised in Canada by Sandra Azocar, executive director of Friends of Medicare, who says: "Private clinics, whether in Canada or Turks and Caicos Island, distort the public system. They don’t save money; they fix no problem that the public system itself can’t fix; and they introduce a whole world of new problems."[9]
Edwin Astwood complained about the company's inefficiency, exorbitant prices and malfunctioning machines in 2019 saying that "people who we already paid for cannot get these basic services".[10]