CRH to begin phased reopening by year-end
Published:Thursday | October 10, 2024 | 12:09 AM
WESTERN BUREAU:
After seven years and billions of dollars in rehabilitation work, the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) in Montego Bay, St James, which was crippled by a noxious fumes issue in 2018, will begin its move back into full service with the start of phased reopening by the end of this year.
Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton made the announcement yesterday during a press briefing at the Iberostar Hotel in Rose Hall, St James, where he also outlined a number of new services and equipment for hospitals under the umbrella of the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA).
“I am anticipating that, by November, or possibly early December of this year, we expect to begin to phase the reopening of the CRH. It is not a substantial phasing in, but incrementally, showing the progress that we have been making with the build-back and the build-out of the institution,” said Tufton.
“On one floor, where the administrative department was, they are now finalising the internals of that facility, and we anticipate that, hopefully, by year-end at the latest, that our key administrative staff will now reoccupy that section of the facility,” continued Tufton.
“Remember that the approach to CRH was that we would phase it floor by floor over time going into next year. You will hear more about that, and we will certainly invite you to come and see what is happening, and then give you an update on some of the other things that are happening in the region,” added Tufton.
The CRH, which is the only Type A hospital in western Jamaica, has been undergoing extensive rehabilitation since February 2017 when the noxious fumes issue forced the evacuation of services from the hospital’s first three floors. After identifying the full extent of issue, some services were relocated to the neighbouring West Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventists complex and the Falmouth Hospital in Trelawny.
The noxious fumes issue at the hospital, which was constructed in 1974, has surfaced periodically over several years but was never as full-blown as it became in 2017. Since the rehabilitation work started in 2018, the cost of the project has ballooned from an initial J$2 billion to $21.4 billion.
URGED TO ELIMINATE DISRUPTION
While welcoming the news of the phased resumption of services at CRH, prominent Montego Bay businessman Mark Kerr-Jarrett, a former president of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, says he hopes phased reopening will not disrupt the work that is left to be done on the hospital.
“Getting the CRH serving the public again as soon as possible is important, and, if it can be done on a phased basis and it is cost-effective, I am all for it,” said Kerr-Jarrett. “That hospital has been out of commission for way too long, and way longer than was necessary, and the kind of human suffering that it has put on the people of St James and western Jamaica is really intolerable.
“The faster we can get that facility back up and running, the better, even on a phased basis, so long as it does not jeopardise the quality of the work being done, or the quality of the service being provided. It is something that I was actually promoting back in 2017, when the initial problem occurred, as I was the one who proposed that the hospital actually be refurbished on a module-by-module and phased basis, so you did not even have to decommission the entire facility. You could have kept it running at somewhere around 30 to 50 per cent capacity,” added Kerr-Jarrett.