Couva hospital board meets on Tuesday

THE board of directors of the Couva medical and multi-training facility, formerly known as the Couva children’s hospital, will meet on Tuesday for the first time, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh told Newsday today.

Deyalsingh said the board, led by Nigel Romano will determine the fee structure for the hospital. This hospital will be the second paying facility in the public health system. Deyalsingh told Newsday the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC) was the first.

He spoke with Newsday after the official opening of the North Central Regional Health Authority’s (NCRHA) diabetes wellness centre at the EWMSC, Mt Hope, today.

In August, Deyalsingh announced during a post-Cabinet briefing that the facility will be a paying hospital.

In April he said it will be jointly owned by the University of the West Indies (the UWI) and the government.

Finance Minister Colm Imbert, in his budget presentation last week Monday, announced that the facility’s board was seeking an operator.

Deyalsingh said, “The Couva facility has been turned over to the UWI. They will find the operator.”

He added the facility will not “run like just another hospital.”

“When you have a teaching component together with international best practice, it means TT becomes a magnet for best practice in treatment, best practice in research. What that will do is lift the standard of healthcare in both the public sector and the private sector, necause you are able to attract resources and learning and teachings from all around the world.”

He said “every country that has an excellent health care system has a serious teaching component coupled with best practice from abroad. We have been missing that in TT. So we are using that opportunity to turn that facility, which is both a hospital and the teaching component, to attract that type of excellence to TT.”

The facility was built under the People’s Partnership administration led by Kamla Persad-Bissessar and was to be a children’s hospital with 230 beds, a burns care unit, a central pharmacy, children’s and adult’s casualty clinic and helicopter rooftop access for emergencies among others.