More than ten years since the closure of the Cornwall Regional Hospital and a massive rehabilitation, its Accident & Emergency Department is to be opened to patient care today.
With overcrowding and patients having to wait sitting on chairs, or at times on the floor, even overnight, before being attended to at the temporary facility, this opening is expected to bring about a welcome change in patient-care at the hospital.
Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Christopher Tufton, who has repeatedly come under heavy criticism for the protracted and costly delay in restoring the 10-storey hospital, will give way to Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness giving the keynote address.
The full resumption of all services is not expected until sometime during the first half of next year.
The full-scale shutdown of the hospital began on September 2016 with the Accident & Emergency Department. The closure was attributed to noxious fumes building up in the lower floors of the imposing building.
However, the problem of noxious fumes surfaced months before resulting in the relocation of office personnel. As the problem of the fumes began to impact more of the hospital, toxicological experts were consulted with a team from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) carrying out an on-the-spot inspection.
With the closure of the hospital, supported by JDF members, there was total evacuation and services and departments relocated to temporary sites. The Mt Salem Health Centre was transformed into the A&E Department and a section of the West Jamaica Conference of SDA centre became home for outpatient clinics while the Nurses Quarters were transformed into patient wards.
The rehabilitation of CRH, which was originally estimated to cost $5 billion, mushroomed overtime with the last official figure given being approximately $23.5 billion, after several missed reopening dates given by the Health Minister.
The rehabilitation has become one of Jamaica’s most prolonged and expensive public-health infrastructure projects and Minister Tufton has promised that it will deliver a modern, fit-for-purpose facility, meeting its original plan of being the premiere hospital in the region, with new wards, new beds, new equipment and new staff accommodation.
