PM: Global inflation could increase cost to rehabilitate Cornwall Regional Hospital
… Work expected to be completed in 2025
Published:Sunday | April 2, 2023 | 10:26 AMAlbert Ferguson - Sunday Gleaner Writer
Western Bureau:
The current $14.1 billion budget to rehabilitate the Cornwall Regional Hospital in St James could increase because of global inflation and other variables, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said while promising that the work will be completed in 2025.
“The timeline for me is not an indicative timeline. I am holding it as a firm timeline and I am saying that in the presence of minister (Christopher) Tufton and the project managers who are here. It has been long in coming,” Holness declared during a tour of the hospital yesterday.
In response to a question from The Sunday Gleaner, the prime minister said, “In terms of the cost, there are factors beyond our control. First of all, there is global inflation which we have to worry about, and 90 per cent of what we will populate this hospital with in terms of equipment and technology is imported. So we couldn’t give you an undertaking about holding the prices fixed.”
Holness continued, “What we don’t want is for the prices to increase because of our inefficiency. What it means for us, therefore, is that, the faster we move, the better the prices will be. One thing is clear, not just about this project, the longer we take to do projects, the more expensive they will become. Do the projects now because, if you wait, not just inflation but movement in technology, movement in expectations and other elements of construction and design become added.”
The Cornwall Regional Hospital Restoration Project, which was triggered by a noxious-fumes issue, came to crisis level in 2017 and caused a relocation of many of its services to other locations. It also exposed other structural issues because of poor maintenance over the past 25 years.
Other variables, such as climate change, will also have an impact, he said, explaining that “We now have to build for climate change, we now have to consider environmental factors which 20 or 30 years ago were not considerations, as they are built in legislatively now.”
He said, when the hospital rehabilitation is completed, with proper maintenance, it will provide another 50 years of service.
The Type A hospital is about 53 years old, donated as a gift from the people of Canada. At the time of its construction, it was state-of-the-art and would have probably been the most advanced in the English-speaking Caribbean.
“Now, generally, these buildings have a useful life of about 50 years. So, regardless of any criticisms that may be levelled at the Government, the truth is that this building has reached its useful life … but we can do further investments to extend the life of the building, particularly as the structure was so well built in the first place,” the prime minister said.