Doctor to include retirement  home in hospital scheme

Dr Devi Shetty, developer of a $2 billion hospital on 200 acres in High Rock, has agreed to build a 20-bed retirement home in East End as part of the deal.

While no time line, blueprints or costs have been confirmed, the Bangalore-based doctor and East End MLA Arden McLean have agreed to build the facility so that the district “will get something out of this,” the legislator said.

Speaking at a Monday-evening gathering in East End, Mr McLean, while discussing opposition to Dart-government closure of nearly one mile of the West Bay Road and relocation of the George Town landfill to Bodden Town, said that his district “accepted the Shetty hospital” but, in exchange, sought certain guarantees.

“I had meetings with the developers, including Mr Imparato,” Mr McLean told the audience, referring to the owner of the 600-acre High Rock site, one-third of which he has sold to the Shetty group, headed by local real-estate developer Gene Thompson.

“I told him that the people of East End accepted the Shetty hospital and, yes, those were the same people that cut the legs off him,” the MLA said, referring to Mr Imparato’s East End Seaport project, a proposal for cargo and cruise berthing, fuel storage, a hotel and shopping malls.

After sustained protest on environmental and overdevelopment grounds, Mr Imparato dropped the project, subsequently reaching agreement with Mr Thompson and Dr Shetty for the $2 billion, 15-year development of a 2,000-bed hospital, after-care and assisted–living facility.

Mr McLean said he had stipulated “there will be no 10-storey buildings,” preserving East End’s rural quality, ”that anyone who wants to work can sign up and work on it “ and that “they will have meetings in this district and come and show us what they are putting down.”

He hoped that between 250 people and 300 people from the district would be employed among the 475 expected “to be working on the
 first phase”.

“I expect them to build a retirement home in this community, he said, “and they have agreed to a 20-bed home. I said if they design, develop and build it, I will find the land.

“So, East Enders prepare yourselves, but they are not going to come here and we get nothing out of it. We will have the hospital, and I believe it will benefit this community, but they are going to have to do something for us,” Mr McLean told the group, gathered in the parking lot of D’s Grocery Store in the heart of town.

Yesterday, spokesman for Mr Thompson and the developers, David Legge, confirmed the agreement.

“My understanding is that this was a discussion with the Shetty people, and Mr McLean was involved,” he said, adding that it was ”a general discussion, not a negotiation.

“The issue of the retirement home for East End came up. Dr Shetty agreed it was a worthwhile project for the district and agreed he would support, build it, fund it and that he would get it done,” Mr Legge said. “We think it’s a good idea for boosting the district. East End has only limited facilities for the elderly, and any expansion would not conflict with the proposed assisted care at the Shetty hospital, which is international.”

“Knowing Dr Shetty,” he finished, “he’ll be happy to do this.”