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Saturday, January 25, 2025

Chancery Lane complex set to open this week

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20121225

Af­ter sev­en years of on­go­ing con­struc­tion, the once moth­balled com­plex on Chancery Lane, San Fer­nan­do?will be opened lat­er this week for out­pa­tient clin­ics from the San?Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Yes­ter­day South West?Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) CEO Anil?Go­sine, told the T&T Guardian that Thurs­day has been set as a ten­ta­tive open­ing date for the out­pa­tient clin­ics at com­plex which will serve as an ex­ten­sion to the over­crowd­ed hos­pi­tal.

Go­sine, who got to­geth­er with char­i­ty group Friends of the Hos­pi­tal to spread Christ­mas cheer at SFGH yes­ter­day, said the com­mis­sion­ing of the out­pa­tient ser­vices is the first step in util­is­ing the build­ing. The com­plex, which was start­ed un­der the for­mer Patrick?Man­ning-led regime, was ini­tial­ly ear­marked as an ad­min­is­tra­tive build­ing to house Gov­ern­ment min­istries in the sec­ond city.

How­ev­er, last year the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment or­dered that the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar com­plex be re­mod­eled for use as a teach­ing hos­pi­tal and an ex­ten­sion to the over­bur­dened SFGH. The build­ing is still un­der­go­ing con­struc­tion and is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in 2013. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la?Per­sad Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to for­mal­ly com­mis­sion the new ser­vices at the com­plex.

This week a spank­ing new sign stat­ing San Fer­nan­do?Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal was put up at the front of the com­plex. Go­sine said the out­pa­tient clin­ics to be opened at the com­plex in­clude, ma­ter­nal and child health, pe­di­atrics, adult med­i­cine and the ENT and Eye clin­ic. "The ENT and eye clin­ic will ex­pand. Right now they share clin­ics and dif­fer­ent days. They will have big­ger clin­ics in the Chancery Lane build­ing which is (part of) the San?Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal,"?he said.

Go­sine said the teach­ing school will be un­der the au­thor­i­ty of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West?In­dies Fac­ul­ty of med­i­cine which will de­liv­er post­grad­u­ate and un­der­grad­u­ate stud­ies. Last year Ude­cott Chair­man Jer­lean John, in an­nounc­ing the new use of the com­plex, said the build­ing would be a retro­fit­ted 468,000 square feet Med­ical Com­plex with 216 Beds; Pae­di­atric Wards; Adult Wards; Chil­dren's and Adult Out­pa­tient, Moth­er and Child, Porter Ser­vices; Func­tion­al Di­ag­nos­tics, On Call Room; Lec­ture Rooms; Ad­min­is­tra­tive Of­fices, Re­tail Space and Park­ing Lots.

Last June when Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal toured the com­plex he es­ti­mat­ed that the to­tal cost of the re-mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the com­plex would be $1 bil­lion. Mooni­lal had told re­porters last year that $465 mil­lion had been spent so far. The con­struc­tion of the com­plex be­gan six years ago and with an ini­tial bud­get of $296 mil­lion. The project stalled in 2010.


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