Now that the children’s Hospital in Couva is complete, overcrowding and lengthy waiting lists at the San Fernando General Hospital will soon be over, says Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan. He made the promise after touring the $1.3 billion hospital on Tuesday. Khan said if the People’s Partnership got a second term, patients from San Fernando General Hospital would be transferred to the Couva hospital to facilitate upgrades.
“San Fernando needs to be refurbished. It is in a dilapidated state and it will be wise to start the process of refurbishment by coming here. You cannot fix a hospital without first having somewhere to put the patients so we may have to put the patients here for an interim period. Couva Accident and Emergency is overcrowded as well so we can use the A&E here,” Khan said.
He said that the Couva Hospital would take its first batch of patients from mid-August. However, he expressed confidence that staffing will not be a problem. “Staffing is not a hard thing. T&T is a destination point and a lot of nurses want to come here. The Jamaican nurses and St Vincent and the Grenadines nurses have put in their applications. There are a lot of nursing colleges in the Caribbean and there are nursing schools in T&T which has increased the uptake,” Khan said.
He recommended, however, that the nursing curriculum should be improved. Khan noted that government recently passed the Nursing Personnel Act in which nurses could become nursing interns. Khan also said the state-of-the-art diagnostic facilities meant that people would not have to wait months to get Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans, x-rays and tests.
He noted that staff will be enticed to work at the spanking new hospital, adding that a medical management committee has already been set up to address staffing concerns.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said the government would complete the Point Fortin, Arima, and Penal hospitals when it got back into power. Persad-Bissessar said the Urban Development Corporation of T&T (Udecott) already had designs for the upgrade and it would be executed in the second term.
Khan said the Port-of-Spain General Hospital was also in need of upgrades.
About The Hospital
Equipped with $150 million worth of equipment, it offers 230 new beds and a range of services, including diagnostic and imaging, same-day surgeries, burns unit, gynaecology and birthing, endoscopy, critical care, pharmaceutical, psychiatry, as well as accident and emergency treatment for children and adults.