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St Annes Hospital faces closure

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HARARE’s privately-owned St Annes Hospital faces closure following termination of its lease agreement with the Catholic institute, Little Company of Mary (LCM), owners of the building where the health institution is operating from.

HARARE’s privately-owned St Annes Hospital faces closure following termination of its lease agreement with the Catholic institute, Little Company of Mary (LCM), owners of the building where the health institution is operating from.

BY XOLISANI NCUBE

The elite hospital, owned by CAPS Holdings, has been given seven days to vacate the premises.

LCM has since advised medical aid societies and other health service providers of the hospital’s impending eviction.

“On March 11, 2014, LCM instituted legal proceedings against St Annes Hospital out of the High Court of Zimbabwe,” LCM wrote to the Association of Health Care Funders of Zimbabwe, through its lawyer, Thandiwe-Regai Hove of Hove and Associates.

The lawyer added: “Accordingly, as an interested party, we hereby inform you of this development to avoid any inconveniences to your members and their subscribers. We request you to assist us by advising your members of this development, as it is our intention to execute the order within seven days.”

Regai-Hove said LCM obtained an eviction order against St Annes on December 23 last year, but declined to disclose reasons for the cancellation of the lease agreement.

The hospital used to be run by LCM before it was sold to Fred Mtandah’s CAPS Holdings in 2004.

CAPS Holdings

Initially, the hospital had a 15-year lease agreement with LCM signed in 2004 which was supposed to run until 2019.

Contacted for comment, Mtandah yesterday said: “We did a transaction with the nuns when we bought the hospital. The eviction is a nullity. There is a new investor and they can’t evict us. When we signed an agreement they ceded everything, so they can’t take us to court. We are not moving from the place. We are going to court to seek reversal of this whole thing.”