Polack Post: Caribbean Mirage – Cayman Hospital Foundation
By Peter Polack
Peter Polack
After the first hundred days debacle of the incumbent Cayman Islands government, the brand new shiny object to mesmerize voters with entrenched idiocy was announced by the premier or head honcho of bureaucracy in the form of a new hospital foundation which is supposed to heal all financial ills. It will provide additional employment, which the government has asked to monitor and improve charitable gifts to the hospital, as well as a head office. No mention of the several hundred thousand in salaries, rent and other expenses including the little devils, consultants, that will accompany this further bureaucracy.
The public waits with bated breath for those appointments which should include a wide and competitive recruitment process as well as peer review. No figures have been given under the newly elected regime of secrecy as to gifts previously received, gifts expected to be received and the foundation financial plan.
Outside of the announcement itself, all relevant information has been omitted. This is necessary to make an exciting but hollow political announcement. The confused will view this as an accomplishment.
Straight from the Caribbean political playbook.
The George Town hospital relied on by the Cayman Islands has been beset with medical, staff and financial scandals involving the hospital, management and their supervisory board, the Health Services Authority. It may have escaped the attention of those promoting that foundation but potential donors are unlikely to bless a hospital with as many historical problems. In any event, they cannot expect to cover deficits from donations unless status or other political favor is in play for recent rich arrivals.
The government pronounced that the foundation was intended to deliver long-term financial sustainability for the public healthcare system. Based on the history, audits and news reports of this besieged institution and utterances by former responsible ministers, nothing could be further from the truth:
1. Profit in 2021 to loss in 2023
2. Rise in expenses by $23 Million from $161 Million to $184 Million.
3. Staff costs rise from $94 Million to $118 Million
4. Board compensation rise from $18,813 in 2016 to $250,750 in 2023
5. Largest operating deficit of all authorities at $12.4 Million after government infusion of 25.6 Million and $179 Million from other sources.
6. 40 audit adjustments for $63 Million
7. Third consecutive year of loss.
8. Received largest amount of money to subsidise operating costs.
9. Output separate from millions of dollars for the under and uninsured.
Government headcount has increased by over a thousand since 2018 to nearly 5,000 persons not including 3,000 for government statutory authorities and corporations.
This follows on from a recent request by the Chief Bureaucrat that private entities must give more without any undertaking as to accountability and the reduction of deficits.
Then there are the no small matters of multiple lawsuits against government or unexpected revenue declines and claims in an uncertain world now ruled by whim.
No longer founded on the seas, it is, we make the mess and you clean it up.
Financial ruin by a thousand cuts.
Notes
https://www.caymancompass.com/2025/11/19/government-fees-rise-to-fund-costly-civil-service
Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer from the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with almost five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide 1940-88.
His views are his own.
