SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

Shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John says she can­not say when the $1.3 bil­lion Cen­tral Block of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal will fi­nal­ly open to the pub­lic.

For now, she con­firmed, the fa­cil­i­ty is still un­der con­struc­tion.

John, a for­mer chair­man of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott) from 2010 to 2015, is now the line min­is­ter re­spon­si­ble for the state agency over­see­ing the project.

Asked on Mon­day when pa­tients could be ad­mit­ted, she replied: “We can’t. We haven’t fin­ished the hos­pi­tal.”

John said Ude­cott has not pro­vid­ed her with even a ten­ta­tive date for the fa­cil­i­ty’s open­ing.

On March 12—just one day af­ter then prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley un­veiled a com­mem­o­ra­tive plaque mark­ing the “prac­ti­cal com­ple­tion” of the hos­pi­tal—Ude­cott had is­sued a press re­lease promis­ing the first pa­tients by Ju­ly 2025.

“No, that is rub­bish. That was a po­lit­i­cal state­ment,” John said, dis­miss­ing the time­line. She in­sist­ed it would have been “im­pos­si­ble” to ad­mit pa­tients in Ju­ly be­cause con­struc­tion was still on­go­ing.

The plaque cer­e­mo­ny had sug­gest­ed the hos­pi­tal was fin­ished. How­ev­er, a video cir­cu­lat­ing af­ter­ward showed un­fin­ished in­te­ri­ors and ex­posed walls, con­tra­dict­ing the for­mer gov­ern­ment’s fan­fare and rais­ing pub­lic con­cern over the fa­cil­i­ty’s readi­ness.

Fol­low­ing the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tion, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) was vot­ed in­to of­fice, and a new Ude­cott board chaired by at­tor­ney Shankar Bidaisee was ap­point­ed in June.

John stressed that be­fore pa­tients can be ad­mit­ted, every piece of med­ical equip­ment must be test­ed.

“It’s on­ly when you get your cer­ti­fi­ca­tion… then you can say, okay, the hos­pi­tal is ready.”

On­ly af­ter this process, she said, can the fa­cil­i­ty be com­mis­sioned.

Work still in progress

The Cen­tral Block was bad­ly dam­aged in the 6.9 mag­ni­tude earth­quake of 2018 and de­clared un­safe for use. The North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA) had to re­lo­cate 122 pa­tients to the hos­pi­tal’s North Block and the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex.

By 2022, the Cen­tral Block was de­mol­ished.

“We are try­ing to put the in­fra­struc­ture, who­ev­er con­struct­ed it, in ser­vice to the peo­ple,” John said.

When com­plet­ed, Cen­tral Block is ex­pect­ed to pro­vide a wide range of ser­vices, in­clud­ing ra­di­ol­o­gy, di­ag­nos­tics, lab­o­ra­to­ry, on­col­o­gy, coro­nary care, urol­o­gy, surgery, oph­thal­mol­o­gy, pae­di­atrics, ICU, psy­chi­a­try, and more.

A sta­tus re­port ob­tained by the Sun­day Guardian showed that pack­ages three to sev­en of the project are es­ti­mat­ed for com­ple­tion be­tween Oc­to­ber and De­cem­ber this year. But John could not com­mit to a date for of­fi­cial com­mis­sion­ing.

On Tues­day, the Sun­day Guardian sent ques­tions via What­sApp to Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe re­gard­ing Cen­tral Block, but he did not re­spond.

Ear­li­er, on Au­gust 5, Bo­doe told this re­porter that the Gov­ern­ment re­mained com­mit­ted to de­liv­er­ing high-qual­i­ty health­care and that the Cen­tral Block was cen­tral to that plan.

“At this time, the hos­pi­tal is un­der­go­ing out­fit­ting by Ude­cott,” Bo­doe said in a What­sApp mes­sage.

“An of­fi­cial up­date on pa­tient in­take, time­lines, staffing and pro­ject­ed cost will be pro­vid­ed, fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of the nec­es­sary out­fit­tings and con­struc­tion in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ude­cott and oth­er key stake­hold­ers.”

He said the min­istry was pri­ori­tis­ing on­col­o­gy ser­vices to en­sure can­cer pa­tients re­ceive time­ly and ef­fec­tive treat­ment.

Re­spond­ing to the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day, for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said on­ly: “You should speak to the CEO of the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA).”

For­mer Ude­cott chair­man Noel Gar­cia, who demit­ted of­fice on May 5, 2025, said: “I have been out of the coun­try pur­su­ing pro­fes­sion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties and as such I am not in a po­si­tion to com­ment.”

(BOX STO­RY) Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal by Year-End

John al­so point­ed to the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal as an­oth­er project ne­glect­ed un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.

She not­ed that when the PNM came in­to of­fice in 2015, the $1.6 bil­lion fa­cil­i­ty—built by the then Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment—was not utilised.

In 2018, Row­ley an­nounced it would be con­vert­ed in­to a teach­ing hos­pi­tal un­der the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and re­named the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty.

Dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, it was used to treat pa­tients and as a step-down fa­cil­i­ty.

“Ten years it sat there,” John said.

Last month, Ude­cott of­fi­cials and Min­is­ter Bo­doe toured Cen­tral Block to as­sess progress. John said she in­tends to per­son­al­ly vis­it both fa­cil­i­ties soon and ex­pressed hope that Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal will be opened by year’s end.

Ude­cott sta­tus re­port

The Sun­day Guardian al­so ob­tained a 19-page Ude­cott sta­tus re­port on Cen­tral Block, dat­ed Au­gust 25. It showed the project is now “90 per cent com­plete.”

De­signed as a 540-bed hos­pi­tal to pro­vide safer and more ef­fi­cient health­care, the project was ap­proved by Cab­i­net in 2017 and award­ed in 2019 to Shang­hai Con­struc­tion Group (SCG) for $1.1 bil­lion.

By late 2021, how­ev­er, SCG ter­mi­nat­ed its con­tract, cit­ing pan­dem­ic-re­lat­ed cost surges. This ex­it cost the State an ad­di­tion­al $110 mil­lion and de­layed the project by two years.

Ude­cott re­tendered the project in sev­en pack­ages, with con­struc­tion restart­ing in June 2022.

Break­down of con­tracts

A sep­a­rate doc­u­ment de­tailed the sev­en con­tracts award­ed to six firms:

Uni­ver­sal Struc­tures Ltd — $92.4 mil­lion for struc­tur­al works (com­plet­ed No­vem­ber 8, 2023, with sav­ings of $14 mil­lion).

Be­ston Con­sult­ing Ltd — $7.3 mil­lion for de­sign ser­vices (com­plet­ed March 31, 2024, sav­ing $1.5 mil­lion).

Chi­na Rail­way Con­struc­tion Caribbean Com­pa­ny Ltd (CR­C­CL) — $546.9 mil­lion for builder’s works, MEP and ex­ter­nal civ­il works (90% com­plete, pro­ject­ed to fin­ish De­cem­ber 31, 2025). Work on ceil­ings, fin­ish­es and me­chan­i­cals was list­ed at 98 per cent, elec­tri­cal at 97 per cent, fire and se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems at 92 per cent, plumb­ing at 90 per cent, and ex­ter­nal civ­il works at 85 per cent.

CR­C­CL — $90 mil­lion ICT con­tract, 70 per cent com­plete, due year-end. Pend­ing in­stal­la­tions in­clude com­put­ers, telemed­i­cine and con­fer­enc­ing sys­tems.

CR­C­CL — $19.7 mil­lion for re­fur­bish­ing the med­ical li­brary (70 per cent com­plete, pro­ject­ed close Oc­to­ber 30). Ceil­ing fin­ish­es at 55 per cent, floor­ing/doors/win­dows at 60 per cent, ex­ter­nal works at 80 per cent, dry walls at 85 per cent.

CR­C­CL with AA Laquis Ltd, West­ern Sci­en­tif­ic Co Ltd and Eye See You Oph­thalmic & Med­ical Sup­plies Ltd — $392.6 mil­lion for med­ical equip­ment (70 per cent com­plete, due De­cem­ber 31). CR­C­CL’s share is $129.3 mil­lion.

CR­C­CL — $13.9 mil­lion for move­able fur­ni­ture (70 per cent com­plete, due No­vem­ber 15). Of 79 re­quired types, 67 are al­ready in-coun­try, with the re­main­der pro­cured last month.

Next steps

The re­port out­lined the fol­low­ing:

In­stal­la­tion of med­ical equip­ment and fur­ni­ture due this month.

Com­mis­sion­ing of med­ical equip­ment sched­uled for Oc­to­ber.

Com­mis­sion­ing of MEP sys­tems al­ready un­der­way.

Train­ing of staff on equip­ment to fol­low in Oc­to­ber and No­vem­ber.

Fi­nal snag­ging of the hos­pi­tal—check­ing and cor­rect­ing faults—be­fore han­dover.