President Irfaan Ali yesterday turned the sod to commence the construction of the US$161 million New Amsterdam General Hos-pital which will be located in Fort Canje Berbice, a stone’s throw away from the present hospital.
At the ceremony yesterday, President Ali stated that the new four-storey hospital will mark a significant step towards establishing a Level Five health facility in Region Six, highlighting that the hospital will not be a standalone facility but will operate on a hub-and-spokes mechanism, connecting health centres in the region through telemedicine.
The new hospital will include a minimum of five operating theatres, one specifically catering for cardiac surgeries, along with advanced digital X-ray, and CT scans.
According to Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony, the hospital will be the second public facility to house an MRI machine and will be equipped for transplants.
Two additional buildings will be constructed within the hospital’s compound: a teaching facility and a modern psychiatric facility.
The project is being executed by VAMED Engineering and President Ali yesterday said he hoped it can be completed in 30 months. “I hope that in the next four weeks, we will see piles being driven here and there is very little excuse that can be given these days because the weather is great and we have built up enough capacity in terms of material in this country,” he stated.
Comparing a level five hospital to a five-star hotel because of its modernised features, Ali said, “It offers the best of the best, the first in class, the highest level of service.”
He stressed that there were components that needed to work in cohesion to ensure that the level five hospital operated at its highest capacity.
He then pointed out that in the last three years, the transition of the level of care at the Georgetown Public Hospital has been second to none – something to be very proud of. However, he said, that is not to say that there are no challenges. “We understand that there are challenges and issues that we still need to fix but importantly we are responding to those challenges and issues. We are creating mechanisms and we are creating the apparatus to help us to fix that,” he added.
Minister Anthony, in highlighting the government’s healthcare strategy, stated that they have been working to fix the services being offered at the current New Amsterdam Hospital, including recently expanding the neonatal unit “moving it from a five-bed neonatal unit to one where we have 12 right now and that’s a big improvement.”
Anthony stressed that they have been striving to improve all of the services being offered at the New Amsterdam Hospital.
The New Amsterdam Hospital has come under massive criticism over the years. However, in recent times there have been reported improvements in the accident and emergency unit as well as the inpatient unit and pharmacy reducing wait time.
Meanwhile, a similar hospital is also being constructed in the Upper Corentyne area to service the Skeldon and neighbouring communities. That hospital is expected to come into operation by the end of the year, Anthony said. “This hospital will have a CT scan. In addition, it will have 75 inpatient beds with two operating theatres and one minor theatre and we will put a surgical team there to make sure that we can do surgery for the first time in that community,” Anthony said yesterday.
Touching on the Port Mourant Hospital, Anthony said that the accident and emergency building there was upgraded while work was ongoing at the inpatient facility.
