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Minister wants answers for delayed $700M Port Kaituma Hospital
A protracted delay of the $700 million Port Kaituma Hospital is not being taken lightly by
Minister of Public Health, Ms. Volda Lawrence
Senior Minister of Public Health, Ms. Volda Lawrence. In fact, in order to address the dilemma, the Minister recently travelled to the Region One location to get answers from the relevant officials for the delay of the project.
This is in light of the Minister’s disclosure that there is a dire need for the new facility.
During her trip, Minister Lawrence visited the new site of the new hospital complex to see the extent of the work completed and to ascertain what areas are lagging behind.
According to the Minister, like the administration building, some minor works are yet to be done on the structure for the hospital and the Emergency Room as well as other services. She however noted that “we have some issues in terms of the doctors’ quarters on which works have just begun, and the nurses’ quarters for which they are now digging the foundation.”
Among the aspects that have been completed for the new hospital is a generator hut, complete with a generator in place, and the mortuary. But Minister Lawrence informed that the refrigerator for the mortuary is yet to be put in place. Added to this, she disclosed that “there is no movement in terms of a furnace that should have been in place too…all of this is of great concern to me.”
Given the various incomplete aspects of the project, the Minister informed that “I am going to be having a meeting with the consultant and the contractor, because we will have to come to some arrangement as to where we go. We cannot allow this project to keep continuing.”
“So the new hospital must get going. We must have a completion date for the opening of that hospital or we will just be spending money at two ends of the stick, and that is not what we have set out in the programme,” asserted 
Minister Lawrence.
The Minister during her Port Kaituma visit also observed the operation of the old Port Kaituma Hospital, following which she asserted that “there is a need for the new hospital to come on stream.”
Moreover, as efforts are being made to complete the new hospital, Lawrence said that “we will now have to look at what monies we have in the budget to assist the old hospital in filling gaps where they exist…in the kitchen, with the electrical works, with plumbing works and to ensure that they have all of the requisite staff in the lab, so that we can be able to cut down the number of persons who have to travel to Georgetown for further analysis.”
The new Port Kaituma Hospital was slated for completion at the end of 2016.
In 2015 soon after the coalition, A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change [APNU+AFC] Government, assumed office, Minister within the Ministry of Public Health, Dr. Karen Cummings, led a high level health team to Region One, at which time she visited the hospital.
Upon arrival at the building site then, the Minister was given a full tour of the facility, which was said to be at the completion stage of Phase One. The contractor is R. Bassoo and Sons, and the supervisory consultancy firm is Kalitech Inc.
Minister Cummings was informed by the consulting firm overseeing the project that Phase Two, even then, was to have commenced shortly, and this would result in the hospital being fully equipped with the latest and best medical equipment.
The commissioning of this new facility was scheduled for December 2016. A new date is yet to be settled on.
The new Port Kaituma hospital is one that is designed to house male and female wards, a fully functioning operating theatre, minor operating room, maternal child healthcare facilities, dentistry, laboratory, infectious diseases centre, pharmacy, radiology department, and modern storage facilities.
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