Demolition begins on Stanley’s Nursing Home

DEMOLITION has begun at the former site of the historic Stanley’s Nursing Home in St Clair.

The site last held the Ellerslie Private Hospital, but has been out of use for a number of years.

An official at the Port of Spain City Corporation city engineer’s department told Newsday the building was being vandalised and overgrown with bush. The city corporation had spoken with with the owners, who chose to demolish the building.

Asked about the owners’ plans for the site, the official said there been no application for redevelopment, which would would be a separate process.

No work took place on Wednesday, but Thursday a Caterpillar crane and a dump truck were continuing the demolition and removing the debris.

Stanley’s Nursing Home, which included a popular maternity clinic in the past, was been in the news as recently as March, over a negligence lawsuit. In that month gynaecologist Dr Kong Sheik Achong Low, who was ordered to compensate the husband of a woman who died while giving birth to her fourth child in 2003, lost his appeal.

He was found negligent and Justice Ricky Rahim ordered him in 2012 to compensate Karen Lezama’s widower Brian, who filed the negligence lawsuit.

Lezama, 41, died on April 6, 2003, at Stanley’s after giving birth to her stillborn son, who was named Ryan.