Res­i­dents of Cou­va and en­vi­rons are clam­our­ing for the Cou­va Chil­dren's Hos­pi­tal to be opened for use as a gen­er­al hos­pi­tal, where every­one could ac­cess its ser­vices.

The near­est health care in­sti­tu­tions in the area in­clude the Cou­va Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty at Cam­den Road, the Gran Cou­va Health Fa­cil­i­ty and the Freeport Health Cen­tre, St Mary's Junc­tion. Cou­va res­i­dents lament­ed that most emer­gency cas­es were sent to ei­ther the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (SFGH) or the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC), Mt Hope, which are both miles away.

When asked if his min­istry would con­sid­er the pub­lic's re­quest, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh re­fused to com­ment.

Re­cent­ly, Deyals­ingh had been tak­en to task for neg­a­tive com­ments re­gard­ing the hos­pi­tal. Ac­cord­ing to Deyals­ingh, the PP gov­ern­ment had fooled the pub­lic in­to be­liev­ing that the hos­pi­tal was for chil­dren. He al­so stat­ed that the fa­cil­i­ty, which was opened on Au­gust 14 by for­mer prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar weeks be­fore the Sep­tem­ber 7 gen­er­al elec­tion, was nev­er to be com­mis­sioned this year, as this would ne­ces­si­tate hav­ing all its equip­ment and staff in place.

Deyals­ingh said nei­ther the min­istry nor the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) had con­tem­plat­ed the com­mis­sion­ing of the fa­cil­i­ty in Au­gust. This, he added, was ev­i­dent in the min­utes of the first meet­ing of the Cou­va Chil­dren and Adult Hos­pi­tal Com­mis­sion­ing Over­sight Com­mit­tee on Ju­ly 8.

Con­tro­ver­sy sur­rounds the $1.5 bil­lion hos­pi­tal

Just last week, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert called on for­mer prime min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ac­count for $239 mil­lion spent on the hos­pi­tal by the gov­ern­ment, while the fa­cil­i­ty was be­ing con­struct­ed by Shang­hai Con­struc­tion Group through a gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment arrange­ment with Chi­na. The lender is the Ex­port Im­port Bank of Chi­na on be­half of Chi­na.

For­mer health min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan, who sought to clear the air on why the gov­ern­ment need­ed to pay $239 mil­lion to­ward the con­struc­tion of the hos­pi­tal, said the loan from the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment amount­ed to 85 per­cent of the $1.5 bil­lion, even as an es­ti­mat­ed $1.9 bil­lion had al­ready been spent on the project. He said the new Gov­ern­ment kept quot­ing the fig­ure of $239 mil­lion, but re­fused to recog­nise that this was the 15 per cent need­ed to make up the $1.5 bil­lion. The sum, he said, was used up front to get the project un­der­way, as loans from Chi­na can take up to a year to process.

He has ac­cused the new ad­min­is­tra­tion of "de­mon­is­ing" the hos­pi­tal and "hold­ing the pub­lic to ran­som to score po­lit­i­cal points."

Khan said the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion had planned to use over­flows of staff from the ac­ci­dent and emer­gency unit at the SFGH and the Cou­va Health Fa­cil­i­ty to as­sist in staffing the hos­pi­tal. He not­ed, too, that there was al­ready equip­ment at the hos­pi­tal, as well as the op­tion of ac­cept­ing as­sis­tance from the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to the Ude­cott web­site, the Cou­va Chil­dren's Hos­pi­tal, which was of­fi­cial­ly opened by the then prime min­is­ter on Au­gust 14, was built to of­fer full-ser­vice dig­i­tal pae­di­atric care, with state-of-the-art clin­i­cal ser­vices and teach­ing fa­cil­i­ties for med­ical spe­cial­ists. Khan, in a cell­phone in­ter­view last week, said that burn and trau­ma pa­tients from the near­by Pt Lisas in­dus­tri­al area will al­so be able to ac­cess treat­ment at the hos­pi­tal, which hous­es two three-storey tow­ers con­tain­ing 80 beds for chil­dren and an ad­di­tion­al 150 beds cater­ing to adult pa­tients.

Last Thurs­day, the Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed the Cou­va area to get the opin­ion of its res­i­dents, where the ma­jor­i­ty of the peo­ple spo­ken to said the in­sti­tu­tion would bet­ter serve the pub­lic if it catered to all and sundry.

Those who spoke did not want to give their full names. Richard­son, from Gran Cou­va, said while they wel­comed a chil­dren's hos­pi­tal, it should be housed in a fa­cil­i­ty that

would treat adults as well.

Cami­ni, al­so from Gran Cou­va, said: "They need to think about the per­sons who live so far away from the oth­er hos­pi­tals that be­ing sick or a med­ical emer­gency could mean death. What about peo­ple who live in re­al rur­al ar­eas in Cou­va. By the time you get to San­do hos­pi­tal, you dead."

Na­dia from Cara­pichaima said for too many years res­i­dents of the area have faced the chal­lenges of get­ting to med­ical fa­cil­i­ties far from their homes. The SFGH, she said, was al­most al­ways filled.

How­ev­er, Freeport res­i­dent Car­o­line thinks oth­er­wise. She called for the in­sti­tu­tion to be opened for the pur­pose it was in­tend­ed. She added that the chil­dren's unit at the EWM­SC was not on­ly too far away, but of­ten over­crowd­ed.

This did not sit well with a passer­by, who heard the com­ment and in­ter­ject­ed that the Gov­ern­ment should move quick­ly to­wards open­ing the fa­cil­i­ty for the gen­er­al pub­lic and not just for chil­dren. When in­formed that the hos­pi­tal would al­so cater for burn and trau­ma pa­tients from the Pt Lisas in­dus­tri­al area, Ravi, from La Ro­maine, said: "That ent good enough, so leave oth­ers to suf­fer or die if we not work­ing in Pt Lisas? I say make it a gen­er­al hos­pi­tal for every­body to ben­e­fit."

Khan said when the hos­pi­tal was opened by for­mer prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, it was "100 per cent com­plet­ed, with the adult wing about 90 per cent." As far as in­fra­struc­ture, Khan said the fa­cil­i­ty was ready for im­me­di­ate use. How­ev­er, he re­mained adamant that it be utilised for the pur­pose it was in­tend­ed.

The coun­try, he said, al­ready had enough gen­er­al hos­pi­tals and spe­cialised care was need­ed more and more every day. Staff, he said, could be sourced lo­cal­ly, but doc­tors and nurs­es should be paid ac­cord­ing to the lev­el of work they were ex­pect­ed to do.

"What are they re­al­ly do­ing? Is ei­ther Gov­ern­ment give the peo­ple the much-need­ed Chil­dren's Hos­pi­tal or they keep de­mon­is­ing it to score po­lit­i­cal points," added Khan.

He said too much ef­fort was be­ing placed on "look­ing for what is sim­ply not there," while the pub­lic was de­prived of its use.

When asked if the site was ever ear­marked for fa­cil­i­ties oth­er than the hos­pi­tal, Khan said no.

He added that the site ad­ja­cent to the hos­pi­tal was to have of­fered vis­i­tors and rel­a­tives ac­com­mo­da­tion, a space to shop, and the com­fort of know­ing they were close to their loved ones. That fa­cil­i­ty, he stat­ed, would have been sep­a­rate from the orig­i­nal arrange­ment and the gov­ern­ment would have sought to ten­der it out through pub­lic/pri­vate part­ner­ships.

Khan not­ed that the hos­pi­tal was all part of the then gov­ern­ment's med­ical tourism thrust, aimed at at­tract­ing in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

"In this thing, you have to think big if you want to at­tract the at­ten­tion of the in­ter­na­tion­al med­ical mar­ket. This would and can still be seen as a po­ten­tial 'med­ical city' where vis­i­tors, pa­tients and their fam­i­ly can be at com­fort and ac­cess the best spe­cialised care for their sick or crit­i­cal chil­dren/pa­tients," he added.

About the fa­cil­i­ty

The found­ing phi­los­o­phy of the Cou­va Chil­dren's Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-train­ing Cen­tre for Med­i­cine, Nurs­ing, Phar­ma­col­o­gy and Op­tom­e­try is to make the most-ad­vanced med­ical ser­vices avail­able to the peo­ple of T&T, with spe­cial em­pha­sis on the needs of chil­dren. Up­on com­ple­tion, the Cou­va Chil­dren's Hos­pi­tal will be a full-ser­vice dig­i­tal pae­di­atric fa­cil­i­ty with state-of-the-art clin­i­cal ser­vices com­ple­ment­ed by teach­ing fa­cil­i­ties for med­ical spe­cial­ists. The hos­pi­tal will of­fer crit­i­cal med­ical care to both chil­dren and adults with a three-storey bed tow­er ded­i­cat­ed to pae­di­atrics and women, con­tain­ing 80 beds, and a sec­ond three-storey bed tow­er ded­i­cat­ed to adult pa­tients, con­tain­ing 150 beds.

Lo­cat­ed just off the Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way, the fa­cil­i­ty will be eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble to pa­tients across the coun­try and equipped with mod­ern, high-end med­ical equip­ment to en­sure the most pro­gres­sive med­ical treat­ment is made avail­able.

Among the de­part­ments and ser­vices of­fered by the Cou­va Chil­dren's Hos­pi­tal are Di­ag­nos­tic & Imag­ing, Surgery, Burn & Plas­tics Pro­gramme, Crit­i­cal Care, Moth­er & Child Care, Birthing, Pae­di­atric Out­pa­tient Clin­ic, Adult Out­pa­tient Clin­ic, Pae­di­atric Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, a phar­ma­cy and lab­o­ra­to­ry, and a he­li­pad to pro­vide he­li­copter ac­cess for emer­gency pa­tients.

The mul­ti-train­ing fa­cil­i­ty will fo­cus on med­i­cine, nurs­ing, phar­ma­col­o­gy and op­tom­e­try, which will be lo­cat­ed in an ad­ja­cent build­ing to the hos­pi­tal block con­nect­ed by a cov­ered path­way.

The fa­cil­i­ty will be en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly ac­com­mo­dat­ing and take ad­van­tage of the site's nat­ur­al topog­ra­phy, views and ex­ist­ing tree lines. It will al­so be self-suf­fi­cient, with a sin­gle cen­tral util­i­ty plant and ter­tiary lev­el waste wa­ter treat­ment plant to en­sure re­li­a­bil­i­ty. Ex­ter­nal works with­in this phase al­so in­clude 620 park­ing spaces, roads and land­scap­ing. There will al­so be a hous­ing fa­cil­i­ty to serve as a ho­tel, guest­house or res­i­dence, as well as a shop­ping mall.