Minister praises new technology at Port of Spain General Hospital central block

HEALTH Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said the functional completion of the central block of the Port of Spain General Hospital (PoSGH) marks the continued modernisation of the health system, as technology had been embedded in the operations of the building.

Speaking at the opening ceremony on March 10, Deyalsingh said the building to date cost an estimated $1.3 billion to date and would contain 540 beds. He described how these beds would be allocated.

“There will be 15 paediatric intensive care unit (ICU) beds dedicated to that purpose, 13 paediatric high dependence unit (HDU) beds and 66 beds in paediatric wards. Paediatrics will be returned to PoSGH. There will be ten coronary unit beds, 194 beds in surgical wards and 216 beds in medical wards.

“There will be 26 beds in psychiatric wards. Why psychiatry wards? You will have heard me talk about the decentralisation of medical health. This is part of it. So not everyone will be in St. Ann’s. We also have psychiatry wards in Arima, Sangre Grande and Pt Fortin hospitals.”

Speaking to Newsday via phone after the ceremony, Deyalsingh said the first intake of patients would happen in July 2025 and more and more services would come online in the months after that.

He said in fiscal 2026, it was proposed to completely refurbish and expand the existing accident and emergency department.

“We will be doing that through by putting in the budgetary proposals for the PSIP in 2026 for funding to do that project. The designs and user brief have already been completed, so that is the next phase of the redevelopment of the PoSGH.”

Deyalsingh said the Prime Minister had challenged his ministers to embed technology in everything they did, particularly in the health care system.

“Part of what we are doing in health is what we call an organisational renewal and modernisation strategy, targeting infrastructure. We don’t mean concrete and glass infrastructure, we mean health infrastructure, embedding that in our processes, inclusive of artificial intelligence, and moving from a paper-heavy to a paper-light to a paperless system which is purely technology.”

He said one of the biggest complaints from patients and health care workers was lost records, which the ministry was aiming to revolutionise.

“We are now in a stage where North Central Regional Health Authority (NCRHA), Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA) and Southwest Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) will come online on March 31, 2025, and your CT scan/MRI image, wherever you have taken it, will be able to be viewed by a clinician in any part of the country.

“To add to that, your lab work/blood results can be viewed anywhere in the country so we don’t have to re-draw blood. We have already pioneered and started to embed the use of electronic prescriptions throughout our system. The day is here when a doctor no longer has to write notes, but could recite his notes and it is automatically transcribed into text. That is already being done in St James and will be here soon.”

Deyalsingh said there had been no resistance from health care workers to the introduction of technology.

NWRHA CEO Anthony Blake said the construction of the building presented many challenges, including the demolition of the old central block, while the hospital remained functional.

He said the hospital will be expanding its offering of specialised clinical services, and health services that were transferred to other facilities in 2018 would return. These would include the eye clinic.

“The new facility has an increased number of operating theatres, ensuring faster surgical interventions, reduced waiting times and better patient outcomes. We are growing our team of highly trained medical professionals to ensure that every patient who walks through these doors receives the quality care they deserve.”

Blake said the facility would be the epicentre of the authority’s digital health revolution.

“We are embedding cutting edge tech into every aspect of care. Since the introduction of our digital information system in 2019, we have worked towards a fully digital patient records system. This ensures information flows seamlessly, accurately and securely from admission to discharge, empowering our clinicians with real-time patient data.

“Artificial intelligence is currently being integrated into our health information system to drive better diagnosis and patient outcomes. Our mobile health application, which will be re-launched soon, will also allow patients to take ownership of their health care, like never before.”

Dr Rowley said he prioritised the rebuilding of the central block after reading a 2009 Pan-American Health Organisation report which frightened him as it said the engineering of the block was unsound. He said he resolved to find the resources to fix the block after a magnitude 6.9 earthquake occurred and reportedly lasted for about two minutes on August 21, 2018.

“The strength of the jolt when the earthquake started and the noise that came, I realised this was a serious one, and I said today might be my worst day in health because that building is going to come down. Those seconds feel like a lifetime, it only lasted about 60-90 seconds, but while it’s going on, it feels like it’s going on forever. I’m there looking at the ceiling in my bedroom to see if it’s going to break, the floor is rolling, but I’m listening to hear if the central block that was deemed engineeringly unsound in 2009, if today was the day that building was going to come down.

“Then the earthquake stopped and I didn’t hear anything, so I felt maybe it didn’t come down. I rushed out the building to see if I saw anything and I called Minister Young to ask if any reports had come in of the building falling down. I can tell you, the relief we all felt when that building rode out that earthquake.”

He said there were still worries about whether aftershocks would complete the job of destroying the building.

Port of Spain North/St. Ann's West MP Stuart Young said he was proud that the central block could be replaced with a facility the country could be proud of. He made a special plea to Blake and the NWRHA team for them to maintain the building.

“Too often in TT, we get carried away with the new build, the new contract, the new field, and we don’t maintain things properly. We, the citizens, will be looking at you carefully as you enter this building, understanding all you’re doing is looking after it for us. Maintenance has to be a culture we re-introduce into TT and something we will be focusing on.”

Attendees were given a tour of Level Five of the facility, which included a model ward. The tour was given to batches of people, with the PM, Deyalsingh, Blake, several Cabinet ministers, UDecott staff, Chinese Embassy staff and others getting the first tour. Also present during the tour was Cumuto/Manzanilla MP Dr Rai Ragbir.

During the tour of the facility, the Prime Minister was shown several systems, including how patients would be checked in and how their records would be updated and tracked. He was told that prescriptions written by doctors could be sent to the pharmacy immediately, greatly cutting down the wait time for filling of prescriptions.

Rowley asked who would be training health care workers in the new systems and Deyalsingh said the company New Fields Technologies, based out of New York and India, who had developed and implemented the systems.