The Georgetown Smart Hospital Project was opened on Saturday.
Minister of Health, Wellness and the Environment, Clayton Burgin, speaking at the ceremony, said that this is the first country in the Caribbean where the project was implemented.
The project seeks to provide safer, eco-friendly and disaster-resilient hospitals. It is designed to establish an integrated approach to building and retrofitting health care facilities to ensure that they are environmentally friendly and durable.
Burgin said the innovation is designed to bridge the gaps between environmental performance or climate grouping, hazard resilience, and disaster reduction.
He said that this year, the Ministry of Health discovered that Jamaica which should have been the recipient of the Caribbean Smart Hospital project, could not embrace it.
Kingstown submitted the Chateaubelair and Georgetown hospitals and the Georgetown hospital was selected by the regional hospital team.
Burgin said that in 2011an evaluation of the hospital was conducted, using the Pan American Health Organisation’s (PAHO) Safe Hospital Index.
It was then determined that there was a high level of risk to volcanic eruption and hurricane, there was an enormous need for attention to be paid to the design and retrofitting of the roof, there was no backup plans for water, no alternative source of energy in the event that the facility is cut off from the main power supply, in addition to numerous defects on the facility.
The Georgetown Smart Hospital Project was implemented at a cost of US$345,926 (EC$924,000) by UK Aid, the Department of International Development, and PAHO with support for various government agencies, Burgin said.
The hospital floor and beds look clean and dirt/germ free. Take me to Georgetown if I get sick not Milton Cato in Kingstown, it’s too grungy there.
ANITA, I believe that what you see is the whole project, so sorry no room at the Inn for you.
I don’t think I have read such a clutter some piece of crap in a very long time. The use of words that only confuse all but the most learned among us, and even then doesn’t make sense.
Here is what we want to know
Is this the new Georgetown Hospital that has opened?
Is it a part of the Georgetown Hospital, if it is, how bigger part?
Is this a separate clinic?
Are there emergency facilities?
How many beds?
How many staff?
All the other smoke screen crap
“Burgin said the innovation is designed to bridge the gaps between environmental performance or climate grouping, hazard resilience, and disaster reduction”
Why have we never heard about this before ‘Pan American Health Organisations (PAHO) Safe Hospital Index’
And what is worrying is what PAHO previously said
“It was then determined that there was a high level of risk to volcanic eruption and hurricane, there was an enormous need for attention to be paid to the design and retrofitting of the roof, there was no backup plans for water, no alternative source of energy in the event that the facility is cut off from the main power supply, in addition to numerous defects on the facility”.
If the Volcano is a serious risk to this facility, why build the big hospital at Georgetown, doesn’t that make it a criminal neglect of duty and care, by someone?
Now Burgin start again and tell the story in plain English, even plain Vincentian, so as everyone understands the crap that you spew out.
NOTICE THIS PROJECT WAS PAID FOR BY UK AID, THOSE COLONIALIST WHO WE SEEK REPARATIONS FROM.
Is that why it has been kept as a silent secret until now?
I am so happy to see SVG moving forward with modernized healthcare. My hope is that this bold move and change means: simulation in education and specialization, simulation in research, the development of healthcare innovations, establishment of good networking which includes advance technology which are interconnected with client care and a good system of electronic medical records, not to forget the use of update equipments and specializations! Therefore putting “smart” in it correct term and not just to flash the name!
Mr. Binose, what do you think. Are you the only person who can talk smart? Well think again. Think I am not over the skies when there is progress in my country…? you are full of it and I take it, you have never visited the Milton Cato Hospital and don’t know what sanitation is all about. If you want to criticize, look at the wide picture and let it be constructive. Stick to ancient history because that’s what you seem to know. Only who feels pain know it hurts.
ANITA, I am hopping mad because this Burgin boy comes forward and presents us with something that is built with British money and gives them no credit whatsoever. It has been kept a secret because it is an embarrassment considering that the Cubans are involved in the big hospital and are getting nowhere fast. The Cubans have been paid millions by us in SVG, they are fine weather friends who seek payment from us, we pay them for the sake of some political affilliation by our leaders.
This facility appears to be only four beds, we know no more than that because as usual we are starved of information unless it is a Venezuelan or Cuban venture, which it is not.
Kenton, if you know more about this facility can you let us know or ask the questions for us?
Anita I did not mean anything bad about what you originally wrote, but I suspects unless you ar top ULP chosen you will never get to use this facility. I agree with you Milton Cato Hospital is little better than a sewer.
Thank you Britain for your further and ongoing aid to SVG.
Isaacs, are you kidding me? What world are you living in? This is SVG for damn sake. What in the world are you talking about with regards to electronic medical records, cutting-edge research, healthcare innovation?? ‘Smart Hospital” but do we have basic medical supplies, basic medical knowledge? Patients are always grateful for the medical care they receive and not the Eco-friendliness or the resiliency of the building/hospital. We always like to put the cart in front of the horse in SVG. Why don’t we just invest in medical supplies for the MCMH and the other clinics around the island? It’s just common sense.
I said this in a past email, “election is around the corner” so the ULP will come up with anything “SMART” for the next year or so. I hope the people of SVG will be “SMART-ER” when it comes time to go to the polling stations. Right now, any other party, even the ‘Green Party’, will be a smarter choice than ULP headed by that PM and is associated with people like the DPP, and Burgin who seems to have forgotten his upbringing since he got into politics.
Since they can come up with Georgetown “SMART” Hospital (scores up), make the Lewis Punnett home SMART too. I don’t have a relative or friend there but I go there every now and again to visit with the people, and there’s tears in my eyes every time. Those elderly people are treated like cast-aways’ left in a dungeon to die a slow and painful death. Mr. Punnett died and left the resources to take care of that institution…I challenge Mr. Binose (in a good way) to do some research, write an article and open the eyes of SVG on the institution that we know as the ‘Poor Home”. Where Burgin live is over-looking the Poor Home, how can he sleep at nights, as Minister of Health, while the senior citizens of the land live in such nasty conditions – check out how their meals are prepared and when and how it is served – look at the houses on the lands belonging to the Lewis Punnett Home while the inmates live in squalor. What happen to the money those lands were sold for? (ie. were they sold or partly given) It would appear these people only know the solution to problems until they acclaim political power.
Come on man, we need a SMART General Hospital for general health care and a SMART Home for the senior citizens of the lands to live/sleep comfortably.
NB: I don’t want anyone commenting that I am against the Smart Hospital in Georgetown because I’m not, I am just impatient to see more SMART institutions/programs (especially in health care) in Blessed SVG. Don’t allow the government to talk s-m-a-r-t when it is convenient to them instead we want the smart talk to be necessary at all times.