Scalpels out in Niue medical school dispute

Alofi (Niue Economic Review/PINA Nius Online) – United States-based founders of a troubled medical school on Niue have been warned to stay away.

Niue’s Premier Sani Lakatani says their personnel represented a threat to the tiny island’s national peace and good order if they showed up. Ownership of the fledging school is in a shambles and the venture appears not to have lived up to its much-touted promise.

The Niue government has cut ties and severed agreements with the founders, the so-called International Medical Planning Committee in Washington DC.

According to one of three former school employees claiming to have assumed control of the venture, they have a new agreement with the government to run it.

Hundreds of students from countries such as the United States, India and Pakistan were expected to flock to the school in Niue’s capital Alofi over the next few years. Niue’s ailing coffers stood to reap millions of dollars in fees associated with the project, the Lord Liver pool University, George Washington School of Medicine.

But, according to one of the founding committee former employees who say they have assumed control of the school, only 22 students – less than half of supposed initial intake – turned up. And nine of them have left since the school opened five months ago.

No stranger to debt problems himself, Mr. Lakatani says in a letter to committee chairman Mr. Hyunki Chris Hong that his organization owed 110,000 NZ dollars (27,800 US dollars) to the government.

The premier instructed Dr. Hong to clean up some of the mess he had allegedly caused on Niue, adding that his government would take steps, including inter-government communication, to protect island institutions from potential harm by the committee’s action overseas. Dr. Hong, a Korean-born immunologist, wanted to dispatch a team of investigators to Niue to find out what had gone amiss, but Mr. Lakatani told him not to bother.

Dr. Hong is livid at what he claims is the nationalization of his asset in which he invested spent more than 500,000 NZ dollars, coming just two weeks after he spent about $20,000 for Mr. Lakatani and a Niuean party of four to visit Korea.

“They took my school away, which is my personal property, and gave it to a third party, Randy Beck (Dr. Beck, the school’s dean of medical education),” said Dr. Hong. Claiming all the school’s students had left the island, he said: “They are going crazy because they cannot get the necessities.”

He said the arrival of 16 incoming students, mainly from India, had been canceled in the take over aftermath. He is threatening to advise as many fellow investors as possible that they should not put money into Niue because of a lack of asset protection.

Dr. Hong has sought New Zealand foreign affairs assistance but, it is understood, they regard the school affair as none of their business. Dr. Beck, a Canadian, said he, fellow countryman Barry Shiele, and Californian Dr. Ray Baldwin had formed, but not yet registered, South Pacific Investments Group to take control of the school.

“I think the people back in the States have not performed to the level that the government had hoped they would,” said Dr. Beck. The government has not taken it over. Some of the problems with the previous management was that they were sending students not approved by the admissions committee with no money and no English.

Dr. Beck, who claims he is owed about 24,000 NZ dollars in back pay, said: “There’s quite a bit of outstanding debts. They zapped themselves. I have advised them all along of the situation. They chose not to listen.” Contrary to Dr. Hong’s assertion, he said it was business as usual at the school for the students who stayed.