A new medical training centre is being mulled for the former New Amsterdam Hospital, which has been vacant for the last two years.
According to Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy, his department has been working with Cabinet to decide on a future for the site. He noted that one of the plans for the building is to relocate the New Amsterdam nursing school to the site. In this vein, he said rehabilitation work has been ongoing, creating lecture rooms and dorms.
Ramsammy explained that the current plans involve expanding the facility to a training centre. Additionally, it is contemplated that some parts, if not all of the programmes outside of nursing, such as medex and community health worker training, could also be facilitated at the New Amsterdam training centre.
Ramsammy also said that the hospital’s previous accident and emergency building has been converted to the New Amsterdam Family Health Centre and has been a model facility that the Health Ministry hopes to emulate in other parts of the country.
