Topic: Aster Cayman Medcity

Plans for the proposed US$350 million Aster Cayman Medcity medical tourism hospital in West Bay appear to have been abandoned.

A Grand Court judge has described as "inappropriate" the granting of decades-long duty, stamp and work permit fee waivers, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to Health City Cayman Islands in 2010.

Cabinet's ability to grant wide-ranging, long-term duty waivers is necessary to help attract major inward investment to the Cayman Islands, according to the lawyer representing government in Doctors Hospital's challenge to Health City's decades-long concessions deal. 

Current and future governments are not bound by deals signed by the previous United Democratic Party and Progressive-led administrations granting hundreds of millions in tax waivers and concessions to new hospital projects, the Grand Court heard on Wednesday.

The Grand Court has given Doctors Hospital permission to move ahead with a judicial review challenging how the government grants an 'institutional' designation to medical facilities.

Doctors Hospital is seeking a judicial review to challenge the practice in the Cayman Islands of allowing 'institutionally registered' medical professionals to practise without having to adhere to the same criteria as healthcare workers in other facilities.

The Central Planning Authority has approved an application by Aster Cayman MedCity for a 40-acre planned area development at the site of the proposed hospital at the junction of the Esterley Tibbetts Highway and Batabano Road in West Bay.

The Central Planning Authority is scheduled to hear a planning permission application from Aster Caribbean Holdings tomorrow (12 May) regarding its proposed $350 million medical tourism hospital.

Aster Cayman Medcity project manager Gene Thompson announced Tuesday that the company's planned US$350 million hospital will be built in West Bay, on land purchased from the Dart group.

Significant leaps forward in Cayman’s healthcare capacity helped the islands weather the storm of COVID-19 far better than it may have done a decade ago.

Government has announced plans for a new US$350 million 500-bed hospital in Grand Cayman, called Aster Cayman Medcity.