News
InterHealth Canada awarded $17.1 Million; former Health Ministers explain why
Deandrea Hamilton
Editor
Turks and Caicos, March 28, 2025 – Five ministers of health have served while a lingering legal matter got dusty and went unrectified; now the Turks and Caicos Islands Government will pay InterHealth Canada $17.1 million; a negotiated settlement engineered by the Washington Misick Administration.
The dispute escalated to litigation in the Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson Administration, when Edwin Astwood was the Minister of Health and Human Services.
Former minister Astwood, now the Leader of the Opposition, explained to Magnetic Media, the government of that day believed there was a contractual quandary. On the one hand, the TCIG had signed on to incrementally increase its clinical services payment to InterHealth Canada to the tune of $1.5 million per month. On the other hand, the government then believed full services in the management of hospital were never delivered by IHC.
“Mr. Speaker if we feel that InterHealth Canada wasn’t doing something right by the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands, why shouldn’t
“I don’t know what happened in the four years, why we lost that case. I wasn’t there for the last four, five years so maybe why did we lose the case, why didn’t we win that? It was a clear shut case that we had.”
Former Minister of Health, Shaun Malcolm had earlier expressed outrage at the question related to the payout; chiding Astwood for feigning ignorance of the matter.
Malcolm explained how the government arrived at the payout sum.
“One of his questions, in relation to the $17.1million claim against government; he asked a question: what is this about? So, Mr. Speaker, I think its important to clarify for the public, those who are listening in the public …. The leader of the opposition was a member of that very same committee (Public Accounts Committee), Mr. Speaker and I recall having the Ministry of Health before that committee and the Ministry of Health was being questioned about the relationship of the Hospital and its contractual agreement.
Mr. Speaker, it came forward that the Ministry of Health could not answer many of our questions at that time because there was an arbitration, that we learned at that time, was in-train. And what was the reason? The TCIG was in a dispute with the InterHealth Canada.
Mr. Speaker, people of the Turks and Caicos Islands, because under the former minister of health, which was on the committee, that happened to be the Leader of the Opposition, there was no reconciliation for a number of years, under him and because there was no reconciliation done and they couldn’t come to a resolution on how much needed to be paid, Interhealth Canada took the government to court on his watch,” said Shaun Malcolm, now the Minister of Home Affairs.
“Thank God for the prudency of this government and our actions we took in our last term, it would have been much more!
We worked diligently, we recruited experts to navigate the very complicated contract and because of the move we made, we have saved this country – this good progressive PNP government – has saved this country a colossal amount of money.”
Minister Malcolm called it the price of “bad management” of the PDM.
“The prudent action to take is to bring expertise, people in, so that we could right the institution.”
The Opposition Leader corrected a point, that it was the PDM which brought the matter to arbitration and not the other way around. He also believes the Turks and Caicos Islands Government should have won the matter, not agreed to the enormous settlement.
“What happened in the last four years and four ministers of health that brought us to this point and I do believe they need to address that,” said Astwood. In a November statement from the Government, the public got a glimpse into the protracted case, where the PNP Administration expressed similar reasons for discontent with the InterHealth Canada contract.
From the TCIG Statement: “… TCIG believes it has established areas of non-compliance that could result in TCIG being able to pursue various remedies under the contract. Whilst IHC have disputed this, the last few months have seen greater dialogue in which a settlement of outstanding issues was sought. However, IHC has been unable to provide adequate assurances to the Cabinet of future performance and we have not been able to reach a satisfactory agreement.
As a result, the Cabinet has decided to continue to enforce TCIG’s contractual rights and invoke the appropriate remedies available to TCI which would include the levy of financial deductions, the ability to require service improvement plans, the ability for TCI to step in to provide the services, and/ or the termination of the contract entirely.”
The spat over the $17.1 million settlement erupted in a March 18, 2025 meeting of the House of Assembly, where a fourth Budget Supplementary of $40.5 million was passed.