MPs have approved a 7.5 percent rise in hospital fees for the second year running.

Health Minister Nelson Bascome announced the increase as he presented the Bermuda Hospitals Board (Hospital Fees) Regulations 2008 — which come into effect on April 1 — to the House of Assembly on Monday evening.

Mr. Bascome said the fee increase was recommended by Bermuda Health Council and was partly to enable the Bermuda Hospitals Board (BHB) to pay for the five-year management services contract it entered into with US firm Kurron Shares in 2007.

He said the contract — which he described as one of several initiatives to improve the standard of care and establish accountability at the Island's two hospitals — would cost BHB about $3 million in the coming year.

The Minister said overseas experts being brought into Bermuda in 2008/9 would cost about $1.9 million and there would be an additional salaries expense of $5.1 million, to ensure the Island was offering competitive pay.

He said in total the hospitals faced an extra $12.8 million in costs this coming year. "This amounts to a 7.5 percent increase to cover these costs."

Opposition Whip John Barritt questioned whether fees could continue to keep rising at that rate in the future.

He said: "This is twice the established rate of inflation. The reason I stand up here this evening ringing the bell is that if you keep going at this rate, just extrapolate out what healthcare is going to cost," he said.

The increase in fees will impact insurers, patients and Government, since it subsidises healthcare for some.

Shadow Health Minister Louise Jackson suggested that the fees were determined "more by the Government's idea of what the costs should be more than what the true cost is".

During debate on the fees, Premier Ewart Brown told MPs he hoped the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital had moved on from its "sordid history" of economically lynching black doctors and making decisions solely based on race.

Speaking at length about past problems at the hospital he said he was one of the doctors interviewed during the Ombudsman's 2007 inquiry into claims of racism there.

All references to him in her 'A Tale of Two Hospitals' report were, he said, "positive", adding that a number of United Bermuda Party MPs who were also medical doctors had in the past served as ministers and had "extensive involvement" in the running of the hospital.

"I'm happy to have been involved in the life of a hospital where I was a member of the staff," he said.

The Premier said previous reviews aimed at improving the hospital were worthwhile but failed due to a "group of doctors whose goal was to block progress".

"Much of it was done on the basis of race," he said, adding that such a climate gave the hospital a "poisonous" atmosphere.

"Almost every decision at the highest levels was taken with race being taken into account," he said. "I hope that today we are past that sordid history.

"Even during the time that my Government was in place, black physicians were being ostracised and, in the words of some, economically lynched."

Dr. Brown cited one white Bermudian doctor, mentioned in Ombudsman Arlene Brock's report, who performed operations while under the influence of controlled substances who was never disciplined and who continues to practice medicine in Florida.

He said the hospital's history meant "some cleansing" was needed before it could properly move forward but that it now had an excellent leader in Chief of Staff Dr. Donald Thomas.

"He joked that though Dr. Thomas was a fellow Howard University graduate "he's not a crony of mine".