Multi-million £££ UK project to make five local hospitals ‘safe and green’

Apr 06, 2018 News

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Guyana is one of seven countries slated to benefit from a £38 million Smart Hospital project. The hospitals slated to be retrofitted and transformed in smart health facilities are the Diamond, Mabaruma, Leonora, Lethem and Paramakatoi hospitals.
The initiative is one being funded by the United Kingdom [UK] Department for International Development [DFID] and implemented through the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation [PAHO/WHO] with the Ministry of Public Health.
Speaking of the strategic project yesterday at a press conference at the Brickdam, Georgetown, Ministry of Public Health head office, British High Commissioner, Mr. Greg Quinn, explained that it is one that is designed to make the health facilities across the Caribbean more efficient and more resilient to natural disasters.
“I think that is something we can all agree is very necessary in the face of recent events in the Region, most notably hurricanes Irma and Maria. But looking closer to home one only has to look at the flooding and the waves that hit Leonora and Uitvlugt not so long ago to see how vulnerable we all are across the Region,” said Quinn.
As part of the initiative, the UK will support efforts across the Region to build and improve 50 health facilities in seven countries. Aside from Guyana, countries being targeted for the retrofitted smart hospital transformation are Belize, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St Lucia, Grenada and Dominica.
But Quinn asserted yesterday, “The work we will do is not sexy but it is vital [and] include such mundane events as strengthening structures, installing hurricane centres, improving drainage, improving access, improving power supply and safety.”
The project is expected to include contingency plan training, conservation plan training, training for maintenance staff for the facilities selected, knowledge, attitude and practice survey, occupation satisfaction survey and consultation with the respective communities on the design. It was revealed that already efforts are being made to evaluate bids from a cadre of local firms.
Even as moves are made towards improving resilience, Quinn said that efforts will be directed to improving energy efficiency in what he called “the language of the project – safe plus green equal smart.”
Quinn pointed out yesterday that WHO is already “adopting the smart assessment tool kit that we have used across the Region and rolling it out in other countries globally.”
Introducing such an initiative is seen as crucial since it is expected to conserve the spending of health facilities. It is, moreover, Quinn’s expectation that the savings will be plugged back into the respective facilities to ensure future maintenance needs are met.
But there is still much work to be done before the benefits can be realised, the High Commissioner noted.
Public Health Minister, Ms. Volda Lawrence, who also spoke at yesterday’s forum made it clear that the hospitals that qualified for the smart transformation were subjected to a strict selection process.
She disclosed that, “when evaluated using the health safety index all of the selected institutions received a classification of [grade] C.” This, Minister Lawrence explained, was a clear indication that all required urgent intervening measures.
In their current form, she added, the hospitals safety levels are inadequate to protect the lives of patients and staff during and after a disaster. Minister Lawrence added, “Since none of them obtained the score to be classified as a green facility then all must be retrofitted. Moreover, implementing the green standard will be advantageous for most of the health facilities given their location.”
She said that with the exception of Diamond and Leonora, the other hospitals are situated in the country’s vast hinterland area where the current high cost of electricity means that solar energy is an excellent option to support the country’s green thrust. Further, she noted, because of mining, water conservation, efficiency and waste, minimization has become critical.
As such, she stressed, “This Smart Hospital initiative will definitely support the country’s green development agenda… [and] vulnerability to natural disasters and exposure to catastrophic climate change makes it essential that Guyana provide health facilities that can function to the optimum and provide the requisite emergency services especially in times of calamity,” said Minister Lawrence.
Even as he too viewed the smart hospital initiative as a money saving concept, PAHO Representative, Dr. William Adu Krow, expressed optimism that other sectors would also take advantage of the available benefits.
“It is envisioned, and it is one of the objectives of the project, that this concept of Smart Facilities will be adopted by other sectors such as Education, Public Infrastructure and Tourism. We see the concept as an opportunity to attract funding and we are hoping that other donors will support it,” added the PAHO Representative.
Speaking of the expected impact, Dr. Adu-Krow noted that healthcare facilities become smart when they link their structural and operational safety with green interventions, at a reasonable cost-to-benefit ratio.
A safe hospital, he therefore explained, is a facility, which offers services that remain accessible and function at maximum capacity in the same infrastructure, during and immediately following the impact of a major event.
According to Dr. Adu Krow, “It is widely acknowledged that climate change is a pervasive threat and is conceivably the biggest challenge faced by our generation. Therefore, what we decide to do today will decide the fate of all future generations.”
He noted that it is cardinal for moves to be made to conceptualise and implement purposive, apposite and cogent interventions to exculpate the adverse effects of climate change.
Dr. Adu Krow therefore underscored that “in green hospitals, air quality improves, water and energy costs decline, and people’s working conditions improve through enhanced physical access to hospitals, improved access to safe water and improved safety conditions.”

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