King Edward VII Memorial Hospital is in need of a new physical plant, Senators heard yesterday.

During the Senate debate on Health yesterday Government Senator Walter Roban said: ?The King Edward VII Memorial Hospital is in need of a new physical plant.?

The structure has deteriorated, he said, and the current facilities are dated to last only another five to ten years.

The new facility will be constructed over the next 15 years, he said.

However a decision to build a new hospital has not yet been made by the Bermuda Hospitals Board, which is still waiting on proposals for an Estate Master Plan it hopes will guide the hospitals into the future.

The BHB put out a Request for Proposals for an Estate Master Plan earlier this month.

The plan will be used to implement both short and long-term facilities and infrastructure planning guidelines, year by year, through to 2015.

The project will be awarded by the end of May, with the final Estate Plan due for presentation roughly eleven months later. An outline of the master plan is scheduled to be ready by the end of January, 2005.

Though admitting the idea of a new hospital was ?an intriguing one?, the Bermuda Hospitals Charitable Trust (BHCT), an independent group which will take over fundraising for the BHB, did not wish to pre-empt the results of the final Estate Plan.

If the plan called for a new hospital, then that would be the route taken, BHCT heads agreed.