Former health minister Dr Fuad Khan says the Couva Children’s Hospital and Training Facility can be opened without a mortuary and an incinerator.
Responding to Finance Minister Colm Imbert’s disclosure to the Parliament that “in preparation for operationalising the facility it was found that there was no mortuary, no autopsy facility, and no incinerator for the disposal of medical waste,” Khan said the hospital could be opened in phases.
He said the Radiology Department could be opened since there are “MRI machines and other pieces of equipment which can be used.” He also debunked the minister’s claim that there was a lack of staff to operationalise the facility saying “there is staff from the San Fernando Hospital who could work at the Couva Hospital.”
Khan said the plan was always to operationalise the hospital in phases, “starting with Radiology, then the Accident and Emergency Department.” It was because of the plan to open in phases, he said, that there was “no urgent need” for an incinerator or a mortuary. Those, Khan said, would have come later.
Imbert also said that Cabinet had agreed that a private-public sector partnerhip was the best way to run the facility. Khan said he totally agreed. “I had been advocating the public-private partnership for the Couva Hospital over the past several months because it is the most viable option.”
The health sector got the third largest allocation in the 2017 fiscal package totalling $6.250 billion. But Khan was disappointed that no attention was paid in the budget to primary healthcare.