Two of four health bills that came before parliament were withdrawn for further amendments following public consultation and input from opposition members.
The Environmental Health Bill, 2026 and the Public Health Bill, 2026 will return to the next sitting of the Parliament of the Cayman Islands in November.
On 2 October, health minister Katherine Ebanks-Wilks told parliament that the government will add the committee-stage amendments to the final text of the Environmental Health Bill.
She said the redrafted bill will be shared with opposition members and then republished for the required 28-day public consultation.
“We’ve waited this long, so we can wait a few more weeks,” she said.
Ebanks-Wilks called the Environmental Health Bill “landmark standalone environmental health legislation”.
It would bring environmental health functions into a single law covering food safety and hygiene, sanitation, waste management, water and air quality, noise and vibration, vector control, swimming pools and potentially health-impacting trades.
“Without it, significant gaps remain in areas relating to air quality control, noise, as well as waste management and environmental health governance,” Ebanks-Wilks said in parliament.
“After waiting decades for this legislation, we must ensure it is properly developed and positioned to deliver the strongest possible framework for the people of the Cayman Islands.”
Moving the withdrawal of the Public Health Bill later that evening, she said the government will take the same approach, because the two bills “basically work hand in hand”.
The environmental health provisions will be taken out of the public health law and turned into standalone legislation, she explained.
She thanked the Human Rights Commission for its input on the bill and said its concerns were reflected in the committee-stage amendments.
In a press release on 7 October, the government said the Public Health Bill will replace a legislative framework dating back more than 40 years.
It will establish a modern framework for preventing disease, protecting population health and responding to public health threats.
The consultation version sought to create a Department of Public Health and put the roles of chief medical officer and chief nursing officer into statute.
The two other health bills in the package – the Tobacco (Amendment) Bill, 2026 and the Health Practice (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 2026 – were both passed.
The government previously described the four-bill package as one of the most significant reforms of Cayman’s health legislation in decades.
A public consultation process for the four bills launched in August drew 204 written submissions across the three islands, the government said.
