Medical Services

Good medical services are provided by the island’s main health center, King Edward VII Memorial Hospital (7 Point Finger Rd., Paget, tel. 441/236-2345, fax 441/236-2213, www.bermudahospitals.bm [1]), simply known as “the hospital” or “KEMH.” The 324-bed hospital provides round-the-clock emergency care and islandwide ambulance service; it is equipped with maternity facilities, a children’s ward, a hyperbaric recompression chamber for divers and diabetics, and intensive care, dialysis, oncology, OR, ER, and cardiac diagnostic units, as well as other specialty services. Emergency air-ambulance service, organized by the hospital, provides access within 24 hours to U.S. and Canadian cities for treatment of serious conditions, including severe burns and spinal, neurological, and coronary problems. A second local hospital, the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute (formerly St. Brendan’s Psychiatric Hospital) (44 Devon Springs Rd., Devonshire, tel. 441/236-3770, www.bermudahospitals.bm [1]), offers professional counseling and treats patients suffering from mental disorders.

Well-stocked pharmacies and drugstores are located throughout the island. Pharmacists can issue a maximum five-day refill of a prescription, including a one-cycle pack of birth-control pills, providing they approve that the medications and doses are accurate. If a longer supply is needed, you’ll have to visit a local doctor who can write a new prescription. Pharmacies do not accept prescriptions from overseas doctors, so any phone call to Bermuda that your home physician might make on your behalf would be wasted. If you need to see a doctor, appointments can be made via your hotel, guesthouse, or host. Most major resorts and hotels have a physician on call who can arrange treatment or phone prescriptions directly to a pharmacy, sometimes without an office visit. Cruise-ship passengers can visit local pharmacies, but it’s usually simpler to contact their ship’s doctor, who can write a five-day prescription, fillable at an island pharmacy by the ship’s agent.