Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Health has been al­lo­cat­ed $800 mil­lion more for the next fi­nan­cial year com­pared to 2023 - $7.409 bil­lion.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert says the Gov­ern­ment has spent bil­lions build­ing out the coun­try’s health in­fra­struc­ture and will ad­dress non com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases next.

He said the Gov­ern­ment’s fo­cus is on de­liv­er­ing health­care so­lu­tions through a net­work of med­ical in­sti­tu­tions and ser­vices, giv­en the link be­tween good health­care and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty – a pre-con­di­tion for sound eco­nom­ic growth.

He not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment has al­ready de­liv­ered the 150-bed Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal at a cost of $1.6 bil­lion, the 100-bed Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal at a cost of $1.3 bil­lion and out­fit­ted the Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal at a cost of $133 mil­lion. He added that the 106-bed San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal, at a cost of $1.1 bil­lion, is now near com­ple­tion and con­struc­tion and com­mis­sion­ing of the new 540-bed Cen­tral Block at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in March 2025 is on track.

Im­bert said health will be­come more ef­fi­cient and ef­fec­tive with the re­cent com­mis­sion­ing of the new Min­istry of Health Ad­min­is­tra­tive Build­ing oblique­ly op­po­site Memo­r­i­al Park in Port-of-Spain.

“Con­struct­ed through a pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship uti­liz­ing a build-own-lease trans­fer arrange­ment, the build­ing was de­signed and brought to com­mis­sion­ing at a cost of $280 mil­lion. Madam Speak­er, this new mod­ern build­ing cov­ers al­most 160,000 sq. ft. and ad­join­ing it is a two-storey car park struc­ture pro­vid­ing 282 car park spots. The build­ing can ac­com­mo­date 800 em­ploy­ees from six oth­er lo­ca­tions and will save us mil­lions of dol­lars in rental costs.”

He said the Gov­ern­ment has adopt­ed a mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary ap­proach for sus­tain­able so­lu­tions to­wards pre­vent­ing, man­ag­ing and con­trol­ling the bur­den of mo­bil­i­ty, mor­tal­i­ty and dis­abil­i­ty due to non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases.

“We seek to en­sure that the pop­u­la­tion can reach the high­est at­tain­able stan­dards of phys­i­cal and men­tal health, qual­i­ty of life and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty at every age. We are com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing that those dis­eases will no longer be a bar­ri­er to well-be­ing and so­cioe­co­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment in the coun­try.

“Madam Speak­er, the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has test­ed the strength and re­silience of our health sys­tem, and we have passed those strin­gent rules and pro­ce­dures and we will con­tin­ue to do so,” Im­bert said.