00:00 Video provided to TV6 News by Udicot shows Health Minister Terence Dyal Singh
00:05 during his tour of the project for the new central block at the Port of Spain
00:09 General Hospital on Thursday as he highlighted an area which gives a
00:13 preview of the facility when it is completed.
00:17 So people come in here and they feel that they are not in a hospital to be sick.
00:22 They are in a place to recover and you will notice the signage,
00:28 you will notice the flowers and all those things.
00:31 So this is what a typical ward is going to look like
00:34 and we are happy to share this little milestone with the public.
00:39 The Health Minister was joined by a team led by the Chairman of Udicot,
00:43 Noel Garcia, during what he said is a site visit that occurs on the last Thursday of every month.
00:49 In a project of this size and complexity,
00:53 unless you have these monthly meetings to go through issues,
00:57 the project can fall behind.
00:59 All things being equal, coming out of this morning's site meeting,
01:04 all things being equal, we hope to finish construction by September to October of 2024.
01:11 This is in keeping with the update the Health Minister gave to the media
01:14 during his tour of the central block site last September.
01:18 And again, all things being equal,
01:21 bearing in mind international supply chain issues and so on,
01:25 we intend to start concurrently with that,
01:30 installing equipment, then you have to commission equipment, train people.
01:35 So we are looking at this time, maybe next year, March, April,
01:40 to have some sort of commissioning of the entire facility for use by the public.
01:47 Last September, Mr. Garcia said the project cost is $1.3 billion
01:53 and that the project was within budget.
01:56 Jule Brown, TV6 News.
01:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Comments