Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit revealed that the first phase of Dominica-China Friendship Hospital will open to the general public on September 6. He said the new hospital will provide free health services to people older than 60 and children below the age of 18. He added that the hospital now has an MRI machine among several other medical equipment provided by the Chinese government.
“We are grateful and happy to report that on the 6th on September, you the people of Dominica will start benefiting from its new Dominica China Friendship hospital and that hospital will have all of the amenities and the top-notch equipment that you will need here in Dominica to provide better medical services to us,” the prime minister said.
According to Skerrit, critics “laughed” and scorned when they saw the calibre of medical equipment coming into the new hospital. “They criticized the Chinese government,” the prime minister said. But as from September 6, everyone in Dominica can get quality healthcare at the new Dominica-China hospital for cheap.
In a related development, Skerrit commended the Montreal Management Consultants EST (MMCE) for constructing quality homes in the country following Hurricane Erika which occurred in 2015. The prime minister condemned those who criticized the company for all they are doing in Dominica. He said the company chose to construct homes for people in Petite Savanne and even used their own money to acquire more than 44 acres of land and built houses without first demanding for money from the government.
“They put up the entire infrastructure; signed contracts to build homes even before we signed an agreement with them as the government; and through the citizenship programme, they got reimbursed,” Skerrit stated. “I challenge anybody in Dominica to bring me a company that would do that for Dominica, that would go in and spend its own money before signing an agreement with the government anywhere in the world.”
Skerrit said there is no reason for anyone to be bitter over what MMCE is doing in the country because they received their first compensation cheque one year after they commenced on the Bellevue Chopin project. Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Lennox Linton continues to urge the government to explain how revenue generated by the Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programme is being used over the last three years. Acceding to this request would force the Skerrit-led administration to fully disclose how much they paid MMCE for their housing projects under the CBI initiative.
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