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Seven days after Medex fire…Affected workers will soon be relocated – Health Minister
While investigation into the fire which completely destroyed the Medex Building two Tuesdays ago at Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara (ECD) is still ongoing, Health Minister, Bheri Ramsaran, yesterday said that his ministry has not forgotten about the affected workers.
During a press conference at his Ministry of Health (MOH) Brickdam office with several of the affected staffers, the Minister said that, at present, he has people checking out three buildings in and around the city
Minister of Health Bheri Ramsaran, at the press conference.
for use to temporarily house the workers.
The Medex building housed several administrative offices under different departments within the Ministry of Health, including the National Food Policy Unit, Veterinary Public Health, Division of Health Sciences Education and that of the Government Parliamentarian and Chairperson of the Women and Gender Equality Commission, Indra Chandarpal.
According to the Minister, the building which was once the Doctors’ Quarter on Quamina Street is currently being looked at to house at least one of the four units which were destroyed. “The building is in fairly good order. There is a large area and some of the rooms can be used as office space.”
Asked whether the Doctors’ Quarter was under renovation, as was reported before by several senior health officials, the Minster said that there was some internal works done to the building and that it is now functional.
“We had loaned that building to the Autistic Society and we have asked them to move because they have long over stayed their welcome,” the Minister posited.
Also being considered is the upper flat of the Campbellville Health Centre and the Regional Health Services building located in the MOH compound.
“The top flat of the Campbellville Health Centre used to be the Municipal Chest many years ago. When it went out of business, we took it over and we renovated it. Since then, we loaned it to Eye Care Guyana to train refractionists,” Dr Ramsaran noted.
He further stressed that once Eye Care Guyana vacates the flat, then some workers will be shifted there.
According to the Minister, rehabilitation work which was supposed to start last year on the Regional Health Services building was recently initiated. He is trying to get the contractor to speed up the process so that a few of the staffers from the Medex Building can be placed there also.
He said that getting everything together (in terms of setting up an office space) will take less than a week and by next week all of the 50 staffers from the destroyed structure will be comfortable.
The Minister added that once works on the three buildings are completed, the staffers will be placed at the different locations based on their number.
“We need to look at the number of persons in a particular unit and the space available.”
Last week Tuesday the Medex building was completely destroyed by fire which appeared to have started in the upper flat of the old wooden structure shortly after 03:00hrs.
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