Great medicine for the economy

That was certainly the case Monday in the Compass for those of us who like to see the results of the private sector in action — that is, jobs.

Sprawling across two full pages were listings of employment opportunities at Health City Cayman Islands, known commonly as the Dr. Devi Shetty Hospital in East End.

In advance of the Feb. 25 opening date for the initial 140-bed specialty hospital, Health City has given notice that it is accepting applications for 113 jobs.

Now that’s not just 113 openings, mind you, but 113 distinct categories of jobs, ranging from bus driver to clinical pharmacologist, and from plumber to IT technician, in addition to doctors and nurses. For Caymanians with all types of professional backgrounds, opportunities abound.

The advertised annual salaries range from $19,167 to $375,000, with the overall average somewhere around $60,000. Those are good jobs.

Even for people who don’t secure employment at the hospital, this is good news. After all, hospital workers will require services and goods, food and entertainment, homes and gasoline. Accompanying development will surely increase land values and bring new amenities to East End.

It’s also good news for the Cayman Islands as a whole, for which the jobs listed don’t just represent individual employment opportunities, but evidence of millions of dollars being put in people’s pockets and back into the country’s economy.

Once you begin to factor in spending by Health City patients and their family members on transportation, accommodations, recreation, etc., you can start to get an idea of how enormously significant this project is to Cayman.

And it’s only the first phase of a decade-long plan with the goal of increasing the number of hospital beds from 140 to 2,000 and diversifying Health City to offer care in all major specialties.

The Health City development — a partnership between Dr. Shetty’s Narayana Health and U.S.-based Ascension Health — is an exemplary example of what the private sector can accomplish when the public sector gets out of the way. (The quicker, the better.)

Although Health City is the product of a vast collaboration, we’ll single out for special recognition project director Gene Thompson and businessman Harry Chandi, who introduced his friend Dr. Shetty to the island. Also deserving of special notice is Opposition Leader McKeeva Bush, former Health Minister Mark Scotland and former MLA Cline Glidden, all of whom were instrumental in bringing this groundbreaking project to Cayman. Ultimately nearly every elected member of government — and almost all of the public — supported the effort.
Indefatigably, Mr. Thompson made scores, if not hundreds, of presentations on Health City to small groups of people on island interested in the project.

Tellingly, Mr. Thompson is also an owner of Dolphin Discovery on North West Point Road in West Bay, located opposite from the Cayman Islands Turtle Farm.

Mr. Thompson’s attraction is profitable, while the government venture across the street is most definitely not. Frankly, we can’t imagine Mr. Thompson’s losing $10 million per year on any venture, as the Turtle Farm does routinely. We suspect Mr. Thompson would “call a meeting,” formulate a turnaround strategy or, more likely, cut his losses and shut it down.

The salient difference between Dolphin Discovery and the Turtle Farm, of course, is that the former is run by a private entrepreneur and the latter is run by the government.

The lesson is this: Governments shouldn’t run businesses. Governments should provide services — and only indispensable ones at that — efficiently and cost-effectively to the citizens they serve.