The An­gli­can Church has do­nat­ed a $100,000 high-tech ul­tra­sound ma­chine to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (SGH).

A re­lease from the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), said the small but sig­nif­i­cant equip­ment han­dover be­tween the An­gli­can Arch­dio­cese of T&T and the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty took place on Mon­day.

The equip­ment will be put to use im­me­di­ate­ly.

An­gli­can Bish­op Claude Berke­ley pre­sent­ed the life-sav­ing equip­ment to Health Sec­re­tary Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine at Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

David­son-Ce­les­tine high­light­ed the sig­nif­i­cant boost the equip­ment would bring to the hos­pi­tal, par­tic­u­lar­ly for preg­nant women.

Berke­ley said, “I am hap­py to be as­so­ci­at­ed with this ef­fort and, in par­tic­u­lar, with the ser­vice that it is ap­pro­pri­ate for qual­i­ty for all med­ical care of all peo­ple on the is­land, and by ex­ten­sion, Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The ma­chine was do­nat­ed by the Third Mis­sion Or­der of the So­ci­ety of St Fran­cis, Province of the Amer­i­c­as, through the in­ter­ven­tion of Sr Ursel­la James (a mem­ber of the Third Or­der).

He al­so en­cour­aged the TRHA to con­tin­ue its work and to en­hance the qual­i­ty of health­care on the is­land.

Dr Vic­tor Wheel­er, act­ing Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer of the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, not­ed that the do­na­tion was “sig­nif­i­cant for in­creas­ing the ca­pac­i­ty of health­care in To­ba­go.” 

“We need­ed this ma­chine. Any equip­ment that helps to save lives can on­ly be a good thing,” he added.

This do­na­tion came on the heels of a $2.1 mil­lion do­na­tion of ven­ti­la­tors and oxy­gen con­cen­tra­tors with ac­ces­sories from PA­HO last Fri­day. 

This will go to­wards the TRHA’s ef­forts to deal with the de­mands of COVID care and the ex­pect­ed Delta vari­ant surge on the is­land.