COVID-19 hospital to become operationalized in a week’s time - Health Minister

COVID-19 hospital to become operationalized in a week’s time – Health Minister

Nov 04, 2020 News

The Ocean View Infectious Diseases Hospital.

Kaieteur News – According to the Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, the $2B COVID-19 Hospital at Liliendaal will become operationalized in a week’s time, thereby opening its doors to treat COVID-19 patients.
During the daily COVID-19 update, Minister Anthony indicated that the Ministry should have “substantially” completed the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), thereby starting the process of transferring patients from the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) to the Liliendaal facility.
During the emergency budget, it was revealed that an additional $790M was needed for the Ocean View Infectious Diseases Hospital to make it operable. That large sum comes after the previous A Partnership For National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Coalition government spent a whopping $1.6 billion to ‘rehabilitate’ the old facility.
It is due to these deficiencies and the “poor planning” that went into the conceptualization of the facility that the new Government claimed it was forced to fish out funds to operationalize it. Against this, Minister Anthony indicated that the majority of the equipment to treat those critical patients has been installed.
Further, the Health Minister went on to indicate that preparations have already begun for health workers to be transferred to the COVID-19 hospital, which has an occupancy level of 200.