The Milton Cato Memorial Hospital (MCMH) in Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ (SVG) main healthcare facility, will be closed after the completion of the hospital being built in Arnos Vale.
Minister of Health Daniel Cummings said at a press conference in Kingstown on Friday that the New Democratic Party (NDP) government, which came to office on Nov. 28, made the decision after reviewing the project and visiting health care facilities across the country.
The hospital is being built at a cost of US$78 million and is the key component of a health system modernization project that is financed by a US$125 million loan from Taiwan, which the Unity Labour Party administration obtained with the support of the then-opposition NDP.
On Oct. 26, 2024, Overseas Engineering and Construction Company, a Taiwanese firm awarded the contract to build the hospital, broke ground on the 189,000 square feet hospital, which was expected to be completed within 32 months.
“All of us know that for a very long time, there have been a myriad of reports that recommended the closure of the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital as a hospital,” said Cummings, who, along with Prime Minister Godwin Friday and other Cabinet and government officials, toured the Arnos Vale Hospital site earlier on Friday.
“This government has taken a decision that we are going to do just that,” he said, adding that the paediatrics and maternity wards, which the previous government had planned to keep at MCMH, would also move to Arnos Vale.
Cummings noted the location of MCMH, close to a gas station, and the repeated flooding issues over the years.
He, however, said that, apart from that, SVG is unique within the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States in having six hospitals for its small population.
The minister noted that the country also has several polyclinics and district clinics. “Very well served we are with district clinics and polyclinics. The issue is, for such a small population, whether in fact, it makes sense to have so many hospitals.”
Cummings said the government has to maintain “a serious administrative level of staff” in Georgetown, at the Modern Medical and Diagnostic Centre, and at the other hospitals in the country – located in Chateaubelair, Mesopotamia, Bequia, Union Island, and the Mental Health Rehabilitation Centre at Glen.
“… to insist on another hospital at Milton Cato, the administrative cost of health care will be astronomical. It is far more efficient to include those units in the one hospital at the Arnos Vale, and that is why the decision has been taken now to include this wing,” the minister said.
He said the additional wing will not impede the construction of the portion already approved.
“This additional unit would be coming on the compound, falling on, in other words,” Cummings said, adding that the logistics are being worked out.
“But the way it is proposed is that you go ahead, as you are going, and you add the additional wing on the compound at Arnos Vale, so that the use of Milton Cato will be looked at subsequently.”
Speaking at the same press conference, Prime Minister Godwin Friday said the future closure of MCMH is not just about administrative efficiency.
“You speak to the senior persons in the administration, the hospital administration, will tell you that the maternity and paediatrics, as they are now, are substandard,” Friday said.
He said a health care facility, by its very nature, serves people who are vulnerable.
“… but young babies and mothers and so forth, this is something that we must improve, that as well. And moving it now is better than doing so at some later date.”
The prime minister said that constructing the maternity and paediatric units at the Arnos Vale hospital will incur some additional cost.
“… but we believe that it’s better to do it now than at some later date, and that over time, with the greater efficiencies that will be generated from having all of the facilities closer together, that it will have an overall beneficial effect,” Friday said.
Meanwhile, Cummings noted that the World Pediatric Project’s operations at MCMH.
“And what is existing now at Milton Cato is not adequate for that. So, what is being proposed to go to Arnos Vale will incorporate that, and also the possibility of being used as a teaching hospital, that we always bring into the equation as a possibility going forward,” he said.
In due course the government can put a rehab center at the kingstown hospital among other medical services. Would be good for our tourism product. Or,are they putting that at Arnis Vale,too?