Recovering COVID-19 patients transferred to incomplete Liliendaal facility

May 27, 2020 News

A total of nine patients said to be recovering from COVID-19 were transferred from the Diamond Diagnostic Centre to the Ocean View hotel which is being transformed into a COVID-19 facility.

Heavy-duty machines in operation

This information was related to Kaieteur News yesterday by Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Ministry of Public Health, Terrence Esseboom.
The PRO said he was not in a position to say why the transfer was made or if the facility was ready to house patients.
However, he noted that the building is currently being used as a “step down facility.” He explained that this means that persons recovering from Coronavirus, who are awaiting a second negative test result, will be sent there before given permission to go home.
Many persons, however, have questioned the move to send patients there despite ongoing works. When Kaieteur News visited the facility yesterday, this was evident.
Heavy duty machines were seen operating within the premises; workers were on scaffolds plastering and painting walls. Added

A front view of the building

to this, there were sections of the structure without roofing materials.
Kaieteur News learnt from a reliable source that electricity and basic medical devices are yet to be installed too.
The source questioned what would happen should there be an emergency at the incompleted facility.
The once popular Ocean View Hotel at Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara was chosen by the National Covid-19 Task Force (NCTF) to serve, not only as a quarantine facility, but as a Covid-19 hospital (sanatorium).
However, the building had to undergo major repairs and renovation said to cost more than US$5M.
Kaieteur News paid a visit to the facility in the initial stages of the project and was told by the engineer overseeing the project that a timeline of six weeks was given by the NCTF to complete the project. Six weeks have passed and by the look of things there is still a great amount of work to be completed.
Meanwhile, as of yesterday, Guyana recorded two new cases of the dreaded disease.
Sharing the information via their social media platform, health ministry noted that the cases have climbed to 139 positives, inclusive of 11 deaths.
According to the Ministry, the numbers were drawn from 1, 499 persons tested for the disease. Of that number 1,360 tested negative for COVID-19, 66 are in institutional isolation, two in institutional quarantine, and two in the ICU and 62 recovered.

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