A Government inquiry should be launched to discover whether claims of institutional racism at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital are valid, the House of Assembly heard on Friday. called for a commission to be set up to investigate the allegations ? made by doctors at KEMH earlier this year ? and to take action if they were found to be true.

He told MPs that the hospital needing replacing with a new facility.

?When you have got a plant as sick and tired as King Edward Hospital then you want to be having a debate about what we are going to do to replace it and how we are going to replace it,? he said.

But he added that there was no point in building a new facility until the allegations of racism had been properly investigated.

?It makes no sense to me to turn around and build a new physical plant and have these accusations.

?We don?t only need a new physical plant but we need to make sure that the practices that are taking place rise above the accusations that are being hurled around at this time.

?We owe it to ourselves to have them answered.?

He said the hospital had a ?historical racial past? which could explain why people might be ?doing things as they have always seen them done?.

He said the Government had an obligation to do something about the racism claims. ?Set up a commission to investigate the allegations, if you deem them serious enough.?sister paper, the Mid-Ocean News, revealed in March that two doctors had written to the health authorities claiming that doctors were treated differently according to skin colour.

Former Bermuda Medical Association president Dr. Cindy Morris later said she had been the victim of institutional racism while at the hospital.