Zahra Gor­don

The out­pa­tient clin­ic of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal will be moved to the Chancery Lane Med­ical Com­plex in Oc­to­ber, ac­cord­ing to South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) CEO Anil Go­sine. Go­sine was speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence dur­ing San Fer­nan­do may­or Dr Navi Mu­radali's first of­fi­cial vis­it to the hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day morn­ing.

In ob­ser­vance of both In­ter­na­tion­al Youth Day and the 50th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence, the may­or's of­fice part­nered with Rapid­fire Kidz Foun­da­tion to dis­trib­ute toys to pa­tients on the pae­di­atric wards. Go­sine added that the pae­di­atric ward would be moved to Chancery Lane in June or Ju­ly of next year. The sur­gi­cal and med­ical pae­di­atric wards now house 61 beds. The new ward, ac­cord­ing to Go­sine, would fa­cil­i­tate 230 beds.

The com­plex will al­so be home to UWI teach­ing fa­cil­i­ties, a phar­ma­cy, lab­o­ra­to­ry and di­ag­nos­tic test­ing cen­tre. The space that the pae­di­atric sur­gi­cal ward now oc­cu­pies will be­come a pa­tient ed­u­ca­tion and coun­selling cen­tre, and will pro­vide ad­di­tion­al room for the car­diac unit.

Go­sine said the new build­ing would al­le­vi­ate is­sues of con­ges­tion and bed short­age at the hos­pi­tal, adding that most of the hos­pi­tal's ma­jor wards would be re­lo­cat­ed to Chancery Lane in the years to come. Mu­radali said dis­cus­sions about the need for a new traf­fic plan for Chancery Lane were on­go­ing.