NCRHA claims financial improvement in eight months

The North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty has re­port­ed ma­jor fi­nan­cial and op­er­a­tional im­prove­ments with­in eight months, fol­low­ing what it de­scribed as years of mis­man­age­ment and weak over­sight.

In a re­port sub­mit­ted to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Chair­man Tim Gopeesingh said the Au­thor­i­ty in­her­it­ed over $350 mil­lion in debt, along­side ir­reg­u­lar spend­ing, pro­cure­ment breach­es and sys­temic gov­er­nance fail­ures.

He said cor­rec­tive mea­sures fo­cused on tight­en­ing fi­nan­cial con­trols, re­struc­tur­ing man­age­ment and sta­bil­is­ing health­care de­liv­ery.

More than $150 mil­lion has been iden­ti­fied, pre­vent­ed or re­cov­ered from im­prop­er pay­ments, in­clud­ing spend­ing linked to cor­rup­tion, nepo­tism and con­tracts with­out prop­er ap­proval. Sig­nif­i­cant cost re­duc­tions were record­ed in se­cu­ri­ty and jan­i­to­r­i­al ser­vices, each cut by about $30 mil­lion.

The Au­thor­i­ty al­so flagged over $140 mil­lion in con­trac­tor pay­ments made with­out ten­ders or con­tracts be­tween 2023 and mid-2025, now un­der foren­sic au­dit.

A ma­jor over­haul of ve­hi­cle rentals re­duced a fleet of 353 ve­hi­cles to 23, gen­er­at­ing about $20 mil­lion in an­nu­al sav­ings. Ir­reg­u­lar over­time prac­tices with­in the nurs­ing pool were al­so dis­man­tled, cut­ting an es­ti­mat­ed $36 mil­lion per year.

Debt owed to more than 500 sup­pli­ers has been re­duced from over $350 mil­lion to un­der $150 mil­lion, with more than $160 mil­lion paid out, restor­ing sup­pli­er con­fi­dence and sta­bil­is­ing ser­vices.

On staffing, 25 act­ing man­agers ap­point­ed short­ly be­fore the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion were re­moved af­ter be­ing deemed un­qual­i­fied. Re­cruit­ment is un­der­way for 100 nurs­es and 55 doc­tors to ad­dress short­ages.

The re­port al­so out­lined im­prove­ments in pa­tient care, in­clud­ing re­duced wait­ing times for surg­eries, out­pa­tient clin­ics and emer­gency ser­vices. Di­ag­nos­tic ca­pac­i­ty ex­pand­ed with tens of thou­sands of CT and MRI scans, in­creased car­diac pro­ce­dures and over three mil­lion lab­o­ra­to­ry tests.

Op­er­at­ing the­atre ca­pac­i­ty more than dou­bled from three to sev­en, while new ser­vices such as oral and max­illo­fa­cial surgery were in­tro­duced and the re­nal trans­plant pro­gramme restart­ed.

In­fra­struc­ture up­grades in­clud­ed elec­tri­cal sys­tems, gen­er­a­tors, el­e­va­tors and crit­i­cal fa­cil­i­ty re­pairs across mul­ti­ple sites.

Gopeesingh said the mea­sures have im­proved ac­count­abil­i­ty, strength­ened gov­er­nance and placed the Au­thor­i­ty on a more sta­ble foot­ing, though work re­mains on­go­ing.