Sir Lester Bird Medical Centre, one of the island’s largest employers, is a 185-bed teaching hospital offering a full range of services, from primary care to advanced critical care.
As the only public hospital on the island, the medical center strives to provide comprehensive, high-quality, compassionate care from well-trained staff, using advanced technology. Their vision is to be the regional health care institution of choice, sustained by best practices, research, and excellent service.
The hospital performed the first live-donor kidney transplant in the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States in 2017. They’ve screened over 2,500 newborns for sickle cell disease. They’ve done more than 600 free cataract surgeries since the medical center’s inception, and they now have 19 dialysis machines and the ability to accommodate 112 patients in their dialysis program.
Salma Crump, Head of Marketing & Communications
Sir Lester Bird is an accredited teaching hospital. It launched an internship program in 2011 and trains 12 medical interns each year. It now hosts a pediatric outreach clinic to extend care—particularly specialty care—to children in Barbuda, and its pediatric department has expanded to include an outpatient speech and language clinic.
In 2022, in honor of the Mill Reef Club’s 75th anniversary, the Fund gave $200,000 to the medical center to buy critically needed cardiac monitors, mobile diagnostic stations, endoscopes, ventilators, gurneys, and wheelchairs for the hospital’s emergency department.
