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The project to rebuild the Irénée de Bruyn Hospital has been underway for several months. Nevertheless, the choice of the current site in Gustavia for rebuilding a healthcare facility continues to spark debate, particularly through opinion pieces.
Michel Magras’s Op-Ed
On October 6, former Saint-Barthélemy Senator Michel Magras published a lengthy op-ed online in which he outlines his perspective on the issue. As chairman of the hospital’s board of directors for nine years and a former territorial councilor, Michel Magras recalls that, in his capacity as a parliamentarian, he voted for “all the laws of the Republic from 2008 to 2020,” notably the HPST Law (Hospital, Patient, Health, Territory) law, which made it possible to “decentralize” healthcare and create the Regional Health Agencies. “And the law reforming medical laboratory testing, which, in its initial version, was intended to eliminate our medical testing laboratory,” the former elected official notes. Anticipating a hypothetical public consultation called for by the Action-Équilibre group of local elected officials, Michel Magras therefore outlined his perspective and analysis in an op-ed that the JSB chose to publish in its entirety.
Action-Équilibre’s Response
On October 10, the Action-Équilibre group also issued a lengthy response addressed to the former senator and the public. Also available online, the group’s eight elected officials (Marie-Hélène Bernier, Bettina Cointre, Cécile Rubino Tessier, Pascale Minarro-Baudoin, David Blanchard, Dimitri Lédée, Jonas Brin, and Maxime Desouches)—which broke its alliance with President Lédée and his group in 2025—thanked Michel Magras for having “reignited the public debate on the future of Bruyn Hospital,” noting that the subject “deserves to be debated extensively.” However, the group believes that “certain points” in the former senator’s op-ed “contradict historical facts, the reality of the land situation, and his own position from thirty years ago.” Action-Équilibre therefore offers its clarifications and perspective. Once again, given the stakes involved in the project to rebuild the healthcare facility, the JSB is publishing the full text of the elected officials’ response. For the record, in December 2025, the group submitted a request to the president of the Territorial Collectivity to organize a public consultation on the choice of location for the future hospital. The group is advocating for the new facility to be built on a plot of land in Saint-Jean owned by the Territorial Collectivity. This request was initially supposed to be put to a vote by elected officials promptly but was not brought to a vote until three months later, during the territorial council meeting on March 12. The motion was rejected by a majority vote. In response, a petition was launched among the public to demand a public referendum to choose between the Gustavia and Saint-Jean sites. The petition gathered more than 5% of the number of registered voters and will therefore be submitted for consideration by elected officials at an upcoming Territorial Council meeting.
Bruno Magras’s Statement
After reading the opinion pieces by Michel Magras and Action-Équilibre, Bruno Magras, honorary president of the Collectivité, also wished to share his views on the hospital issue. An advocate for rebuilding on the Gustavia site, the former mayor explains the reasons for his position in a concise op-ed. The full text of his perspective can be found on page 18 of issue 1683.
The three opinion pieces illustrate the sensitivity of the issue—in terms of its historical, land-use, financial, structural, and emotional aspects. For now, several components of the reconstruction project are underway. The three architectural firms selected by the “project management” jury are due to submit their preliminary designs and financial estimates by the end of November. As for the issue of the hospital’s land, it has been resolved. The land on which the hospital stands has been transferred back to the healthcare facility. As for the land occupied by the nursing home and the parking lot, it is now owned by the Territorial Collectivity.
The total cost of rebuilding the Bruyn Hospital at its current site in Gustavia has been estimated at 33.3 million euros.
