~ Two new persons to replace director and adjunct director by April 8th~
MARIGOT:--- The Louis Constant Fleming Hospital (LCF) will be under administration as of April 8th, 2019 announced the Director of the Agence de Santé Guadeloupe, Saint-Martin, Saint-Barthélémy (ARS) Madame Valérie DENUX. LCF will be under administration for a duration of six months she said two persons were appointed to replace the director and adjunct director both of whom have agreed to resign based on her request as the Director of ARS.
“An Interim Administration means that we have given a mission to qualified people for a specific duration of time, in order for them to follow a road map. The decision taken by the ARS was motivated by the financial difficulties LCF is faced with. LCF currently has a deficit of Euros 6M."
It is the expected that the mission under the new heads will allow management of LCF to take a step back in order for a complete analysis of LCF’s financial situation and to decide whether or not the operations are viable. One of the replacements is a female doctor who will be coming from neighboring Martinique who has a Caribbean vision while the second person is a male who will be coming from France. The second person has experience who already led provisional administrations, says the director of the ARS.
Denux assured that during the period of the administration, staff members at LCF will not be laid off. The main goal is to get a “fresh start” with the new management team within the next six months.
Some of the objectives that were put in place to improve the LCF financial situation are:
- to increase the recovery rate and optimize the organization: "We must not believe that unpaid bills are only due to foreigners who come for free treatment. There are also many French people who come without any health coverage, which makes recovery difficult", says the ARS director. "In this regard, the agents of the Health and Social Development Department of the French side accompany the population permanently in order to facilitate procedures for registration at the French social Insurance and have access to their rights."
Valérie DENOUX admitted that there are is a shortage of doctors in France and Guadeloupe. While there is a lack of long term doctors on Saint Martin, there are consequences for the organization and establishment with the turnover. Another ambition during the six months period is to develop innovative projects in order for LCF Hospital to become more attractive for doctors. Denux said that good salaries attract doctors but also good medical practices.
