Letter of the Day | Building system and other national failures
Published:Wednesday | April 4, 2018 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
It is ironic that a hospital building, which is the place the sick and injured go for treatment and to get well, is classified as being sick. Who do you call when this happens? Who can provide the diagnosis, prescription and therapy needed to bring this massive thing back to health? It seems that the current responsible parties have not been able to provide the needed medical intervention for it, at least for the past 10 years.
The current state of affairs regarding the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) is what happens when 'modern' buildings are operated without sufficient technical knowledge and resources. The building design reflects the international 'modernist style' with its unpainted concrete exterior and rhythm of solids and voids, and like other modern hospitals, was built to prevent air from the outside environment getting into the building. I'm sure the unpainted facade of concrete was justified as a means to save on painting costs, which I am sure if it were to be painted every 10 years would be a major cost. However, the algae-stained grey facade only adds to its appearance of gloom and doom, fitting perfectly with the sick building title.
My difficulty with the current situation of the CRH is time being taken to fix whatever the diagnosed problem is that affects the facility. Surely, there must be Jamaican architects, engineers and project managers capable of fixing it. It cannot be so difficult to define, isolate and remove the cause of this problem, as to require abandoning the entire facility, unless the faulty ventilation system cannot be corrected, without significant alteration to the entire building structure.
In the meantime, it would be useful for the authorities and politicians on both sides to stand down from political rhetoric, finger-pointing and blaming others to get the facility back to optimum operation to serve the population in the Cornwall region.
As with most things, a team is necessary to accomplish this task, and in this case, the team needs good players, good managers and a great coach. At present, it seems that, even if we have all of the above, the coming together of the team to solve the problem affecting the hospital is not creating any opportunities to solve the problem so that we can all move on, and I do mean move on. We have been talking about this issue for too long.
Hugh M. Dunbar, RA
Architect