Give strategic help to develop Sav Hospital – Mitchell

WESTERN BUREAU:

HOWARD MITCHELL, board member of the Issa Trust Foundation, has made a call for strategic assistance to be given by the Ministry of Health and Wellness in developing the Savanna-la-Mar Public Hospital in Westmoreland so it can provide better quality service, including for overseas visitors.

Mitchell made the call on Friday while addressing the foundation’s official handing over of $57 million in COVID-19 personal protective equipment and other medical supplies to the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA) and the North East Regional Health Authority. The handover took place at the Couples Negril Resort in Westmoreland.

“It is a matter of confusion for me that we have a hospital like Savanna-la-Mar Hospital, which is old, but it has good infrastructure and it has land. I mainly think that we should focus our efforts on getting targeted, strategic assistance for the Savanna-la-Mar Hospital, to develop it and improve its services, so that the tourism industry in this region can access it more easily and can feel more secure and confident about the facilities that exist there,” said Mitchell.

“I am pretty sure that the hotels in Negril would be more than willing to contribute to a meaningful, well-thought-out developmental plan for the Savanna-la-Mar Hospital. If we do not acknowledge, as citizens, that public health is going to become, and has become, the most important element to facilitate productivity and development, then we are going to be making a mistake,” Mitchell added.

The Savanna-la-Mar Hospital, which falls under the WRHA’s management and has been in operation since 1964, is western Jamaica’s only Type B medical facility and has a 205-bed capacity, up from the 164 beds it originally had space for.

The hospital previously got major expansion and restoration work in 2018 at a cost of $24 million. This included the paving of the hospital’s car park and roadways, expansion of the waiting area for laboratory services, and the creation of a separate entryway and exit gate for better vehicular management. The facility also got a Drug Serv Pharmacy on its grounds in 2019, built by the National Health Fund at a cost of $12 million.

Currently, work is under way to create a field hospital near the facility’s main building, with a bed capacity for 50 COVID-19 patients. That project, for which $23 million has been spent to date, is slated for completion this month.

Meanwhile, Mitchell urged the health authorities to partner with other stakeholders in order to counter the issues currently faced by Jamaica’s health sector, including the COVID-19 pandemic which has, up to Saturday, resulted in 102,505 cases being recorded locally since March 2020.

“It has become clear to me that the only way we are going to succeed, not only in public health, but across the nation’s challenges, is if everybody – all the citizens, civil society, public service, and the State – come together and move against the challenges of the 21st century. COVID is not going away and cannot be handled by the Ministry of Health alone, or, indeed, by the State alone,” said Mitchell.

“Public health is going to become more and more pivotal in development, in productivity, and in the mental health of our people and the general well-being of our nation. We have to make a special effort to come together, to put aside whatever distrust may have existed, and to work towards solutions to these challenges.”