Health Minister Michael Scott insisted yesterday that there would be no problems staffing new urgent care centres at both ends of the Island.

Premier Ewart Brown reiterated his promise of the mini-hospitals earlier this week and said they would cost $5 million.

Mr. Scott was asked at a press conference yesterday how they would be manned when there were already staffing shortages at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

He said the staffing requirements would be small. "We'll face no problems with staffing these facilities. I have little doubt that we will be able to meet the requirements of these two centres."

Mr. Scott said he anticipated that the doctors used would be local and that Kurron — management consultants to Bermuda Hospitals Board — would help find nurses.

He added that Kurron had already helped to recruit 14 nurses from the States for the Sylvia Richardson and Lefroy House elderly care homes.

Former Health Minister Patrice Minors also spoke at yesterday's Alaska Hall press conference to refute claims by Shadow Health Minister Louise Jackson that the promise of the care centres was "pure electioneering" and had come "out of thin air".

Mrs. Minors said: "When I was Minister of Health I did on the floor of the House speak to the desire to have such urgent care clinics in the east and the west."

She added: "I find it interesting that she would make the claim that no one knew. I had spoken about it in every circle that I had the opportunity to do and I had also spoken about it on the floor of the House."

She said it was too soon for planning applications to have been submitted but that they would be in due course.