Business View Caribbean, November/December 2018

64 65 Doctors Hospital is one of three on Grand Cayman, an island with a population of 62,000. Auman explains that most of the citizens are covered by CINICO, the country’s health insur- ance plan, and that government employees are required to go the Health Services Authority Hospital (HSA) for treatment. “HSA has similar services but treats a different population,” he explains. “We’re the private hospital on the island and we cater to that group of patients.We work with a lot of managed care insurance compa- nies on the island–Britcay (British Caymanian Insurance Company Limited) being the biggest insurance company that we do business with. But along with that, we do some CINICO patients if there are services that are not available at the HSA. And there are self-pay patients, as well. And we do have patients, occasionally, who are here on vacation– tourists that come in on the cruise ships. There are over a million tourists who visit the island every year.We don’t do a lot, but we do treat tourists – absolutely.” When the new ownership group bought “Old Chrissie” in 2016, it went through a total re- branding process - along with the name change, DOCTORS HOSPITAL and some reconstruction of the physical plant, it added new services and physicians. And, accord- ing to Pellow, those changes and investments are ongoing. “Since we took over the hospital, we reopened the maternity unit, so we’re putting a special emphasis on women’s health with addi- tional OB/GYN and Pediatrics. That’s a brand new aspect.” In fact, Doctors Hospital has the only private maternity suites in the Cayman Islands. “We’re investing and expanding in Orthopedics within the next year, and Cardiology is ready to take off,” Pellow continues. “Another interesting thing we’ve gotten into last year is medical can- nabis. The Cayman Islands is unique in that area – it’s the only legalized place to have medical cannabis in the Caribbean, at the moment. The other thing we’re doing is changing our computer system here – electronic health records are going full tilt; we’re moving to digital in everything and that’s a multi-year process.”