Oct. 19, 2001 — Low pay will keep the next chief executive officer of St. Thomas Roy Lester Schneider Hospital from being a native Virgin Islander.
At the Thursday session of the Senate Rules Committee on St. Croix, senators were told that the search for a new CEO is ongoing, but efforts to hire a local for the job fell through because of money. The committee met to consider the renominations of June Adams and Ray Joseph for the RLS Hospital and Health Facilities Board.
Under questioning by Sen. Norma Pickard-Samuel about why a local hasnt ever held the CEO job, Adams said negotiations with an unnamed Virgin Islander fell through because the salary for the job was not high enough.
"We did have a native Virgin Islander. He was so well-accepted by the medical staff," Adams said. "We could not meet his financial demands to come home."
In July, Eugene Woods resigned as the hospitals CEO for a position nearer his family in the northeastern United States. Woods held the job since June 1998.
Without naming Woods, Pickard-Samuel blasted past CEOs from the mainland for coming to the territory and moving on after a short time. She said that off-islanders dont know how to treat local employees.
"Im tired of these people coming in just to build up their resumes," she said. "I would like to see a Virgin Islander or a person of Caribbean decent.
"[Off-islanders] think they are slave masters and walk all over" locals, Pickard-Samuel said.
Adams said the hospital boards hands are tied in what they can offer in salaries. She said RLS Hospital had revenues of only $45 million last year. That amount, she said, isnt enough to generate the level of compensation paid to hospital administrators on the mainland.
"The hospital at this particular point and time cannot afford to make those salaries," Adams said.
Adams' and Josephs nominations were forwarded to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation.