By Aabigayle McIntosh

The government is in the process of conducting dialogue with authorities from a medical facility in
Columbia to look at continued care with former patience who were once receiving treatment at the Cancer
Centre Eastern Caribbean.

Information Minister Melford Nicholas told reporters on Thursday that Health Minister Sir Molwyn Joseph
may travel to that country shortly to finalize those arrangements.

“We did discuss engaging the medical services in Columbia to ensure we can have some direct peer-to-
peer arrangement with facilities even beyond us operationalizing the facility here so that we can have that
type of services for our people,”

The cancer center closed its doors on April 30 th leaving many people who require the services in a
quandary. Last month the government passed a resolution in parliament to forcefully purchase the
property after negotiations over the selling price yielded no results.

The government valued the property between 6 and 9 million EC dollars which is significantly way less
that the $US 15 million the owners had proposed it was valued for.

Nicholas said talks in this regard is ongoing.

“The matter is still going through the legal process in terms of the acquisition. The acquisition is a matter
of following through with the steps that are necessary to bring it under the control of the government.

“I think the more critical issue is how do we re-operationalize the facility because that was the purpose of
the acquisition. We are going to have to find the right people to man the facilities as well as the medical
personnel to be able to provide that service continually,” Nicholas said.

The cabinet also discussed the issue of radiation leak if specific equipment at the closed facility is not
properly managed. He said they are now fully aware about what needs to be done to ensure that the
facility can be maintained in a safe environment to allow the minister and his team are able to implement
the measures.