Lawmakers were recently presented with details of a long-awaited plan to rebuild the Virgin Islands hospital system. Former Public Works Commissioner Darryl Smalls testified last week before the 35th Legislature Committee on Appropriations, Budget and Finance.
Work has already begun on the Charlotte Kimmelman Cancer Center. The head of the team overseeing a massive redevelopment project said he expects that project to wrap up soon.
Smalls is currently leading the effort as executive director of the Territorial Hospital Redevelopment Team. “The cancer center is moving forward. Right now we’re slated for completion on October 1,” he said.
Established in 2020, the redevelopment team was established to ensure that reconstruction of four major public healthcare facilities is done according to carefully developed plans.
Committee Chair Donna Frett-Gregory asked what the redevelopment center has learned so far. Working on the cancer center is also giving the team a chance to test the plan they spent months putting together, Smalls said.
The director told lawmakers that work to rebuild Schneider Hospital is expected to begin by the summer of 2025.
Committee members also asked how work on Schneider Hospital will proceed, given that Juan F. Luis Hospital and its operations were moved into a temporary site and the St. Thomas hospital has not.
“We don’t have the opportunity here, in this district, for a temporary space because of the total rebuild, right?” Frett-Gregory asked.
That’s when Smalls explained how careful planning led to a workable game plan. “We made a conscientious decision at that time … our temporary facility is actually the hospital,” he said.
That projection was based on prior experience as operations director at the St. Thomas hospital — a position Smalls left to lead Public Works and returned to after his job as commissioner was done.
Now, as the redevelopment director, he appeared at budget hearings held July 24 as the committee reviewed the spending request from the Schneider Regional Medical Center.
Two-point-three billion dollars has been earmarked for the job done at St. Thomas’ Roy L. Schneider Hospital and the nearby Charlotte Kimmelman Cancer Center; also at the Gov. Juan F. Luis Hospital on St. Croix and the Myrah Keating Smith Clinic on St. John.
