By Mark DaCosta- On July 16, 2026, VAMED Engineering GmbH, the Vienna-based healthcare builder, convened a press conference in Georgetown at which company representatives interfaced with members of the media. Following that engagement, its legal representative, C.A. Nigel Hughes, who heads the Georgetown law firm Hughes, Fields and Stoby, released a statement setting out the company’s stance and the reasoning behind its decision to haul the Government of Guyana before an international arbitral tribunal. At stake are two of our nation’s most keenly awaited public health undertakings: the Guyana Paediatric and Maternity Hospital at Goedverwagting, East Coast Demerara, and the New Amsterdam Hospital Campus in Region 6.

Both projects were sold to the Guyanese people as transformative. The 256-bed mothers’ and children’s facility — born of a 2018 understanding between Guyana and Austria  and underpinned by roughly €160 million in United Kingdom export finance  — was billed at its July 2022 sod-turning as the largest public health investment our country has ever seen . The Berbice project promised a modern 150-bed replacement for the ageing New Amsterdam institution. VAMED’s undertaking, Hughes reminded the nation, was to design, construct and equip these facilities; its payment, the attorney-at-law contended, has been silenced by the paymaster.

At the heart of the grievance, as VAMED’s attorney framed it: “substantial works have been performed, certified, and remain unpaid.” More damning still, Hughes asserted that “the Government’s own appointed Engineer has certified amounts due to works already carried out,” yet those sums remain outstanding. In construction practice, certification by the employer’s own engineer is the gold standard of debt; to sit upon such certificates, the lawyer implied, is to repudiate one’s own scrutiny.