Gov­ern­ment could save $10 to $14 mil­lion if they re­tain the ser­vices of in-house se­cu­ri­ty rather than con­tract se­cu­ri­ty at the East­ern Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (ER­HA).Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan told of the mil­lions that can be saved which could go to­wards pur­chas­ing hos­pi­tal equip­ment, fol­low­ing the open­ing of the Con­fer­ence on Pal­lia­tive Care at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex yes­ter­day.

Ques­tioned by the me­dia about his de­sire to have a mas­sive over­haul in se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems at the hos­pi­tal, Khan said while there is a need to change the par­a­digm and meth­ods of cus­tomer ser­vice, "I was told that if we I do in-house se­cu­ri­ty I would save $10 to $14 mil­lion which could be used to buy equip­ment."

Khan said he is think­ing of leas­ing rather than pur­chas­ing the equip­ment.Who­ev­er is leas­ing, Khan said, would be re­quired to main­tain the equip­ment.Probed about the on­col­o­gy cen­tre, Khan said very soon ten­ders will go out for its com­ple­tion.Khan said one of the ma­jor prob­lems of pal­lia­tive care is the Food and Drugs De­part­ment and the need to bring in cer­tain phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals for pal­lia­tive care which he would be ad­dress­ing.