On Thursday, the Rules and Judiciary Committee moved Gov. Albert Bryan Jr.’s nominees for a hospital board and a vocational education board to the whole body with favorable recommendations.
Safiya George, the Government Hospitals and Health Facilities Corporation, District Governing Board nominee, will serve the St. Thomas-St. John district if she gets final approval. Anthony Mardenborough, the Board of Career and Technical Education nominee, would serve the St. Croix district. The senators thanked both for their willingness to serve.
“As president of the University of the Virgin Islands,” George told the senators, “I have dedicated my career to courageous caring leadership, research, and transformational health care. I believe that strong, strategic leadership and collaboration are essential to improving health care access, quality, and sustainability in our community.”
Sen. Ray Fonseca said George had “impeccable qualifications,” and he would vote for her. Then, he asked about the proposed medical school for the territory. She said a classroom building had been dedicated to the school. Still, the territory was far from the $20 million in endowment funds it would need to even consider medical school certification.
Sen. Milton Potter said he was “struggling” with the medical school proposal. He asked George if it would be better if the territory focused on bringing Allied Health Care to the territory. George said it would be easier to do it that way, but “the easiest way is not always the best way.”
She also fielded questions about general health care in the territory. “We have a huge task before us,” she said, noting that life expectancy stateside was in the 80s, but in the Virgin Islands, it was in the 70s.
She added that the murder rate, with young males as victims, brings down the life expectancy average for Virgin Islanders. The CIA World Factbook site says male life expectancy in the Virgin Islands is 77.6 and female is 84.1.
Sen. Novelle Francis said the state of health care in the Virgin Islands was “troubling” and questioned whether it might worsen if the federal government’s proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid went through. He said those cuts would hit the “poor and vulnerable.”
Sen. Kenneth Gittens asked what George could do to speed up rebuilding the territory’s two hospitals, which he said was going “incredibly slow.” George said she needed more information about why the projects were going slow.
Mardenborough grew up in the Virgin Islands and has taught for four years at local private schools. In his testimony, he listed 11 targets he would aim for while on the board.
Sen. Angel Bolques asked about Mardenborough’s target of working with UVI. Mardenborough said his target was to work and maintain a working relationship with UVI to discuss and create pathways for career and technical education at the university with certifications and degree offerings. He told Bolques that would include certification in construction trades.
Construction trades also fit into the target Mardenborough called alignment. This target includes “looking at all current career and technical education courses offered in the territory and adding courses that align with the community’s current needs, including construction, as recovery projects need to be completed.”
He also said he planned on “advocating for the Board of Education to ensure all public K-8 and junior high schools in the territory offer at least three to four ongoing CTE-type courses to the students before high school.“
Mardenborough concluded his testimony by saying, “The future of the Virgin Islands depends on a skilled and competitive workforce. I am eager to contribute my experience and passion to advancing CTE programs that benefit our students, educators, businesses, and the greater community.”
