SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert has al­lo­cat­ed $6.084 bil­lion to the health sec­tor , with the promise of $60 mil­lion of that mon­ey go­ing to­wards the con­struc­tion of a hos­pi­tal in Rox­bor­ough, To­ba­go.

Im­bert al­so promised a new mod­ern health cen­tre in Diego Mar­tin at a cost of $8.6 mil­lion.

The health al­lo­ca­tion is the third largest in the $53.03 bil­lion bud­get.

Dur­ing his bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, ti­tled Sta­bil­i­ty, Strength and Growth Im­bert boast­ed about high qual­i­ty health­care be­ing of­fered to cit­i­zens.

He said there are 248 phar­ma­cies where cit­i­zens can ac­cess the Chron­ic Dis­ease As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (CDAP) for free med­ica­tion.

He said the State’s drug items stock has in­creased from 7.1 mil­lion to 10.2 mil­lion items.

He said the Chil­dren’s Life Fund has sent 20 pa­tients abroad in the last fis­cal year up un­til June 2019, at a cost of $7.6 mil­ion, the re­nal dial­y­sis pro­gramme has pro­vid­ed treat­ment to 1317 pa­tients at a cost of $72 mi­i­ion and the adult car­diac pro­gramme has pro­vid­ed care to 1,164 peo­ple up un­til April 2019 at a cost of $15.6 mil­lion.

In ad­di­tion to the Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal, which will be com­mis­sioned in 2021, Im­bert list­ed the con­struc­tion of the new Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, which was al­so promised in the 2018/2019 bud­get.

“The new Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal with a 150 beds is be­ing com­mis­sioned be­fore the end of this year, 2019, at a cost of $1.6 bllion the new hos­pi­tal will pro­vide ac­cess to state-of-the-art pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary ser­vices in ma­jor ar­eas, ac­ci­dent and emer­gency, ob­stet­rics, chemother­a­py, MRI, en­doscopy, CT scans etc,” he said.

Some 250,000 peo­ple are to ben­e­fit from this hos­pi­tal.

The Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal, Im­bert said, will be com­mis­sioned in Jan­u­ary 2020 at a cost of $1.2 bil­lion.

The San­gre Grande hos­pi­tal, which was an­nounced in the 2018/2019 bud­get at a cost of $850mil­lion, is now be­ing es­ti­mat­ed to cost $1.2 bil­lion- with 100 beds and is ex­pect­ed to be opened in No­vem­ber 2021.

He al­so list­ed the Port- of- Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal Cen­tral Block project which is in the de­sign de­vel­op­ment stage and is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in Jan­u­ary 2022.

The Cou­va Med­ical and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, built un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion which is cur­rent­ly be­ing man­aged by the North-Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, will soon hand­ed over to a “first-class and qual­i­ty op­er­a­tor,” Im­bert said.

Once that is done, the hos­pi­tal will be­gin to pro­vide med­ical train­ing for the re­gion­al ter­tiary in­sti­tu­tions as a ‘ve­hi­cle’ for med­ical tourism and teach­ing.

He said the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies has al­ready ap­proached the Gov­ern­ment about par­tic­i­pat­ing in an ‘in­te­grat­ed off­shore med­ical school pro­gramme’ that will in­clude the Pe­nal Cam­pus of the UWI, the Cou­va fa­cil­i­ty and the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex.

“The Gov­ern­ment is await­ing the writ­ten pro­pos­al for this pro­gramme from the UWI, which is ex­pect­ed short­ly. Madam Speak­er, the fa­cil­i­ty is po­si­tioned to be a game chang­er to the pub­lic health are­na as med­ical staff and in­terns will be op­er­at­ing in a mod­ern fa­cil­i­ty with the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy and with pa­tients re­ceiv­ing cut­ting-edge health­care in a com­fort­able en­vi­ron­ment,” Im­bert said.