Roseau hospital redevelopment 'is three months behind schedule'

The first phase of the New National Hospital redevelopment is three months behind schedule, with the prime minister seeking to deal with problems as a priority.

This first phase was initially projected to be completed by August this year but will now be delayed until the end of 2017.

The construction firm and Chinese officials responsible for its completion lamented the difficulty of constructing a facility on an existing compound which is still in use.

In response to this, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit acknowledged yesterday the complications and promised to have the matter addressed immediately, in an effort to return the schedule to normalcy as soon as possible.

“The staff needs to meet today at 2.30pm to address all of the outstanding issues which have been highlighted in this report, and inform me of those being addressed by tomorrow morning,” he asserted.

“Where we have control over the matters, we should address them.”

Skerrit also announced that before the end of the year the hospital will have a new managerial board in place to ensure that the facility is operated efficiently.

“We’re going to have a new management structure for the hospital [and] there’ll be a board at the hospital. There will also be legislation dealing with practice of medicine in Dominica and there will be a CEO responsible for running the hospita,l"  he added.

Earlier in the press briefing Lu Kun, China's ambassador to Dominica explained that even though the project was delayed it was still running as smoothly as possible.

He expressed confidence in the synergy between the governments of China and Dominica.

“I hope in the future that both sides can continue to work together to solve the problems. We still have a lot of time to cooperate, because this is just the first stage.”