UHWI aims for first-world services with upcoming multistorey building
Published:Saturday | December 18, 2021 | 12:08 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
The University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) is to erect a six-storey $238-million complex geared towards elevating the services and offerings of the facility to international standards.
The disclosure was made yesterday as the St Andrew-based teaching hospital received initial funding of $144 million from the Government to continue the process of designing the building.
The first floor will offer advanced diagnostic services with two magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, while the second floor will focus on emergency cases, such as chest pain, heart attack, critical care, and adolescent psychiatry that will address mental health. The third floor of the building will house the most advanced diagnostic unit in the English-speaking Caribbean with two MRI machines and two CT scan machines, while the fourth will be outfitted with robotic prostatectomy equipment. A neonatal intensive care unit will be on the fifth level, with the sixth focusing on cardiology and urology.
“We are hoping that these designs will be completed during he early part of the next financial year,” said Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton as he handed over the funds during a ceremony at the hospital on Friday.
“This is an institution that was built well before Independence between 1948 and 1952. It was intended and continues to be an important service to the region, not just to Jamaica, and there’s an expectation that the University Hospital provides significant leadership to the rest of public health across the country,” he added.
Tufton said the new building will form part of a 10-year strategic plan designed before COVID-19 that is geared towards boosting the primary healthcare system’s ability to respond to the health profile of the population, which requires greater focus on prevention and community support.
For his part, Dr Carl Bruce, medical chief of staff at the UHWI said the new tower will be the most modern healthcare facility in the region.
“The time has come where we have a modern healthcare facility that will match some of the skills we have that reside in Jamaica,” Bruce said.
“We have adopted the Ministry of Health’s strategy. We have looked at what’s affecting the people of Jamaica and we are offering you a solution and a response to each of those problems,” he added.
Bruce said the new development will help with the growth of the hospital, which currently has a 584-bed capacity although it houses more patients than this number and serves more than 300,000 persons per year.