Shadow Minister of Legislative and Public Administration John Barritt last night praised the Bermuda Hospitals Board for their transparency on the recent hospital report.While also encouraging them to ensure there was oversight on the project, suggesting that the Legislature could be the place to do this.

In a news conference, Mr. Barritt confirmed yesterday that the BHB had met with the Opposition party days before the Johns Hopkins Report was made public to review it with them.

This gave, said Mr. Barritt, the Opposition a chance to give an educated response on the improvements in the acute care centres of KEMH that should take five years and cost about $315 million.

He said: "We in the Opposition often get criticised for doing nothing but criticise. The first point I want to stress is this, we in the Opposition were very pleased first with the new track with the development of the hospital.

"And with respect of the new plan they shared it with us as few days before they made it public. I want to underscore how important that is in terms of government.

"It means when we speak and get the opportunity to respond to questions we can come from an informed position."Mr. Barritt made it clear, however, that the Opposition and the people of Bermuda would be encouraging the BHBto continue down this path of openness and transparency.

He pointed to the suggestion in the Johns Hopkins Report that: "Given the significance of the cost of this project, it is essential that appropriate levels of oversight be in place."As it is envisioned in the report this would include: a Project Oversight Team that would begin at an individual issue level such as the KEMH/MOB Team, a MWI Project Team, a CCU Team and a Residential Accommodations team.

These would then report to a Project Implementation Committee which would then report to the Project Oversight Board.This Board would have advice from two other Boards the Physician Advisory and the Community Advisory Board.The Project Oversight Board would be composed of representatives of the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Finance, Bermuda Hospitals Charitable Trust, Bermuda Hospitals Board, Physicians and Community.Mr. Barritt urged the BHB to ensure a team like this was organised and also called for an extra layer of oversight and transparency with the use of the Public Accounts Committee and Joint Select Committees.

He said:"There ought to be an project oversight board and that's something else we want to underscore and impact."If they had gone to the public the first time around they might have saved a great deal of time and money. We need oversight at multiple levels."We would have to see a more active and robust Public Accounts committee that takes active interest in projects like this as well.

It would be important that those meetings be open to the public as well."And I think people have seen the benefit of this in the handling of the joint select committee of the education reform.

"We need to use the legislature. The legislature has a checks on these types of projects so we have something other then the executive watching these projects."