There will soon be a pae­di­atric unit in Port-of-Spain says Min­is­ter of Health Fuad Khan.He made the an­nounce­ment while speak­ing to re­porters yes­ter­day dur­ing a tour of the St James Med­ical Fa­cil­i­ty.Khan said there was a need for a pae­di­atric sys­tem to take the load off the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope.He told re­porters that to avoid sit­u­a­tions where mount­ing pae­di­atric cas­es took prece­dence over ac­ci­dent and emer­gen­cies, the min­istry would seek to "take the load off of Mt Hope."

Khan said there would be units in Port-of-Spain as well as Ari­ma and Ch­agua­nas. He did not say where they will be placed."There should not be cas­es where some­one with a sick child from Diego Mar­tin should have to go all the way to Mt Hope to re­ceive treat­ment," added Khan.He said the work­load at the Mt Hope hos­pi­tal was heavy and so the de­ci­sion had been tak­en to de­cen­tralise the treat­ment of chil­dren.

Dur­ing the tour, Khan re­peat­ed state­ments pre­vi­ous­ly re­port­ed by the T&T Guardian, in­di­cat­ing that though there was no ac­ci­dent and emer­gency unit at the fa­cil­i­ty, a doc­tor would be avail­able to treat such cas­es."Un­like be­fore, this will be a 24-hour fa­cil­i­ty and will be open on week­ends to treat pa­tients and per­form same-day surg­eries," said Khan.