Hospital fee increases of 7.5 percent were approved by MPs in the House of Assembly on Friday.

Junior Health Minister Patrice Minors, presenting the Bermuda Hospitals Board (Hospital Fees) Regulations 2007 said the rise would give King Edward VII Memorial Hospital greater financial stability and allow it to plan and develop strategies to improve patient care.

Opposition House Leader John Barritt>said the increase was "almost double what we anticipate the rate of inflation to be".

"I don't think it's going to do the people of this country any good if every year we come along and we think we can do a 7.5 percent increase," he said. "Something has to be done. It impacts profoundly on our seniors."

But former Health Minister Nelson BascomB>described the new fees as "almost watershed". "The hospital has never really been able to ascertain a real cost of services," he said. "We have arrived today on this day, this evening, that we can say when an individual goes in for treatment, we can establish a cost."

Regulations allowing for increases in hospital insurance deductions and an eight percent rise in standard premiums were also passed.

Former Opposition Leader Grant Gibbosaid there had been a 70 percent increase in standard premiums in the past five years. and that the Island's health council had been "toothless" in stemming the rise.

All the changes will go before the Senate for approval.