July 3, 2001 – Two grants, amounting to $1.78 million, from the Office of Insular Affairs, U.S. Department of Interior, will allow the Roy L. Schneider Hospital to make needed improvements to its infrastructure.
Some of the money will be used for ongoing hurricane mitigation projects.
The grants were part of money which was reprogrammed after a meeting in October between Virgin Islands grant administrators and their federal counterparts.
According to Keith Parsky, public information officer for Insular Affairs, "If we hadn't gone through the exercise of looking at the unused federal funds," the grant money might not have been available.
The goal of the Inter Governmental Inter Agency (IAIG) meeting last fall was to "take an accurate look at what was out there," Parsky said.
The combination of a more accountable administration in the Virgin Islands and the efforts of Insular Affairs resulted in the money being made available, he said.
One grant, of $1.35 million, is slated for "critically needed capital improvements."
The other grant, of $429,750, is earmarked for a lightning protection system, infrastructure improvements and staff training.
In the transmittal letter to Eugene Woods, chief executive officer of RLS Hospital, the acting director of Insular Affairs, Nikolao Pula, commended Woods' efforts. Pula said he was pleased to make the grants available, having been told about "your excellent staff and your efforts and hard work to improve the hospital."