The Royal Gazette tried a week ago to get answers on the partnership the Bermuda Hospital’s Board (BHB) had entered into with the overseas Medical Consulting firm Kurron Services of America when the matter was first raised in the House of Assembly.

We initially contacted Health Minister Nelson Bascome, but were directed to the new Chairman of the BHB, Edwin Wilson, who the Minister said would speak to us after the BHB held its monthly meeting on Tuesday, November 28. When this newspaper attempted to arrange the interview we were told by a BHB spokesperson that Mr. Wilson had not officially assumed his new position and ‘prefers to wait (to speak to the Gazette) until he has taken on his new position and settles in a bit before commenting on Board activities.’

When the Gazette told the BHB spokesperson that we were investigating the Kurron story, and needed a response to a number of questions, we were told to email our questions to the hospital’s communications department.

The questions we sent to the BHB and their response are outlined below.

Gazette questions:

1 Why was Kurron hired?

2 What is the length of the contract?

3 What is the value of the contract? What is Kurron being paid?

4 Was the contract put out to tender?

5 If not — why not?

6 If yes — how many people/companies responded to the tender?

7 When was the contract officially awarded?

8 What are the terms and conditions of the contract? What was Kurron hired to do?

BHB response

“As part of the overall measures to support healthcare service delivery in Bermuda, BHB has agreed with the Minister of Health to hire KURRON Shares. KURRON undertook an operational review of BHB in 2003. Its role today will be to review progress and, more importantly, recommend actions to maintain our momentum in improving operations and patient care.”As this is a follow up report, it makes sense to use KURRON, rather than put the contract out to tender. The contract is at normal commercial rates and we expect a draft report to be available to the Board prior to the end of BHB’s fiscal year (March 31, 2007).”