RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

All wards at the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal have been de­con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed and cleaned, as the hos­pi­tal is now be­ing de­com­mis­sioned as a COVID fa­cil­i­ty.

This as Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced the de-es­ca­la­tion of the par­al­lel health­care sys­tem.

The Point Fortin fa­cil­i­ty has been one of 12 hos­pi­tals set up as part Gov­ern­ment’s COVID par­al­lel health care sys­tem ever since the third wave of the coun­try hit in 2021.

A source at the fa­cil­i­ty said, “Wards are now open for the start of the stock­ing sup­plies, equip­ment and med­ica­tion. The doors are now open lead­ing in­to the main hos­pi­tal, wards and X-ray de­part­ment.”

The hos­pi­tal is ex­pect­ed to be opened to the pub­lic from March 14. 

“No pa­tients....on­ly ground­work and or­gan­is­ing for now. There has been some pres­sure wash­ing on the com­pound,” the source added.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er at the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) Kevon Ger­vais, who con­firmed that the hos­pi­tal is be­ing de­com­mis­sioned.

He said the Point Fortin Area hos­pi­tal be­came part of the par­al­lel health care sys­tem on May 21, 2021.

In his state­ment in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley an­nounced the de-es­ca­la­tion of the par­al­lel health care sys­tem as T&T tran­si­tions from the acute phase of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, to the en­dem­ic phase.

The Prime Min­is­ter said at March 1, 2022, all fa­cil­i­ties in the par­al­lel health­care sys­tem record­ed oc­cu­pan­cy lev­els well be­low sev­en­ty-five per cent.

He said up to 8 am on March 1, with­in the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ments of the sys­tem, 15 pa­tients were be­ing man­aged and no­body was in ICU.

“A con­sis­tent trend of de­creas­ing ad­mis­sions to the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ments have been not­ed,” Row­ley said.

He added, “The Min­istry of Health will be pre­sent­ing a na­tion­al path­way for the con­sol­i­da­tion of the Pub­lic Health Ser­vice that would see the re­turn of the health sys­tem, and by ex­ten­sion health ser­vices, to an as-near-nor­mal ex­is­tence, as the coun­try tran­si­tions from the acute phase to the en­dem­ic phase of COVID-19.”

He al­so said, “A struc­tured risk-based ap­proach will be adopt­ed to grad­u­al­ly re­duce the foot­print of the par­al­lel health­care sys­tems and reg­u­larise the hos­pi­tal sys­tem.”

 The pro­pos­al will be im­ple­ment­ed on a phased ba­sis based on re­al-time risk as­sess­ment, start­ing with Point Fortin, the Prime Min­is­ter added.