Opposition senator calls for auditor general to probe $14B CRH project

WESTERN BUREAU:

THE PEOPLE’S National Party (PNP) has called for Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis to conduct a special audit of the Cornwall Regional Hospital’s (CRH) ongoing multibillion-dollar rehabilitation project.

More than $4 billion has already been spent on the hospital rehabilitation project, which began in 2019 and was scheduled to be completed in April. However, a further extension has delayed the completion date by two years to March 2025, and approximately $14.1 billion has been earmarked for the full completion.

“The dire situation at Cornwall Regional Hospital is a sad state, and, as citizens of this parish, we must not continue to accept the moving goalposts of the timelines and of the money being spent,” said PNP Senator Janice Allen.

“It is time for us to call in the auditor general because, on that project, we cannot understand how the money is spent, and it is taxpayers’ money,” Allen said.

Addressing party delegates and supporters at the Dr Andre Haughton-led St James West Central Constituency Conference at the Granville Primary and Infant School recently, the opposition senator argued that there have been too many missed timelines for the completion of the rehabilitation and the re-occupation of the Type-A medical facility.

“Last November, the minister of health [Dr Christopher Tufton], who never tells a straight story, told us that we would begin to start occupation of the Cornwall Regional Hospital this year, and he lied, because, in July this year, he said that it was going to be next year, and now we have people dying on the floors of the hospital and we can’t get a straight answer,” Allen said.

In an April interview with The Gleaner, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said the CRH rehabilitation project will be complete in 2025, but could not guarantee that the current $14.1-billion budget to rehabilitate the Mt Salem, St James-based hospital would remain the same, because of global inflation and other variables.

FACTORS BEYOND OUR CONTROL

“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 said.

“We don’t want 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,” he explained.

“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,” he said then.

In March, Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton assured the nation that, on completion, the CRH will be completely transformed.

“Cornwall Regional Hospital will be different, not only in terms of the services on offer, but also the available facilities and general levels of comfort for patients and staff,” he said. “I predict that the investment will offer bang for the buck as we deliver not only a newly developed structure but also one that boasts new equipment as well as new and additional services.”

According to the minister, the CRH will be the only public hospital – in combination with the Western Children and Adolescents Hospital – to offer the full range of Type-A services, including pulmonology, neurology, gastroenterology, endocrinology, facio maxillary surgery, gynaecology, oncology, and reproductive endocrinology, which together comprise the new services that are to be added over time.

NOXIOUS FUMES

February 2017 saw the relocation of services when noxious fumes arose for a second time at the hospital, resulting in several departments from the building’s first three floors being evacuated. Investigations by the Ministry of Health and the Pan American Health Organization subsequently revealed that fibreglass particles from the ventilation system were the cause of the fumes.

In May of that year, Dr Ken-Garfield Douglas, the then regional director of the Western Regional Health Authority, informed the country that the hospital’s fourth, fifth and sixth floors, which housed the intensive care unit and operating theatres, were to be refurbished and cleaned in order to be occupied by May 30. He also announced that the overall restoration work was estimated for completion by September 2018.

However, work on the facility is still ongoing and is now estimated to cost $14.1 billion, up from the 2022 $5.8-billion price tag.

The additional amount is to cover Phase Three of the redevelopment project, and will include the rehabilitation of the 10 floors, procurement of furniture, information technology supplies, and medical equipment. Phase Three will also entail putting back the drywall partitions, electrical sections, plumbing, air-conditioning ducts, and returning equipment.

albert.ferguson@gleanerjm.com

Cornwall Regional Hospital’s rehabilitation timelines

• January 2018 – Mould was removed from the hospital’s eighth, ninth, and 10th floors. Arrangements were also being made to relocate the hospital’s boiler from the basement to an external building.

• March 2018 – During the week of March 2, Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton announced that the relocation of the hospital’s boiler would take two weeks to complete. The overall restoration project was estimated for completion by November, at a cost of $2 billion.

• August 1, 2018 – The Ministry of Health appointed an oversight committee for the restoration work. The committee, headed by Professor Archibald McDonald, estimated that the hospital should be fully operational by August 2019.

• January 2019 – Tufton announced that replacement of the hospital’s inner plumbing and electrical fittings and restoration of the roof would take place in another few months, at a combined cost of $500 million.

• February 14, 2019 – McDonald, head of the oversight committee, revealed to the St James Municipal Corporation that the total restoration work would increase to between $3 billion and $3.5 billion.

• December 12, 2019 – McDonald announced during a press conference at the Grand-A-View Restaurant in Montego Bay that the restoration project should be completed by December 2020 at a cost of $3.8 billion to $4 billion. He also responded to critics who suggested that thy should just build a new hospital, by saying that the cost for such an endeavour would be $30 billion, money which Jamaica could not afford.

• May 2020 – Allocated funds for the hospital’s restoration were reduced from $4 billion to $1.7 billion, in accordance with the Government’s 2020/21 estimates of expenditure. According to the Government’s fiscal policy paper for the 2020/21 financial year at that time, the CRH was to benefit from a J$3.9-billion allocation for the improvement of several health facilities across the country, which would also benefit the Western Children and Adolescents Hospital, which is being built on the CRH’s grounds.

• September 2020 – The independent oversight committee monitoring the restoration work announced that the rehabilitation process, including work on the facility’s tower, could be delayed until as far as 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• October 2020 – The committee reiterated that the work’s completion date could be either late 2021 or early 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• December 2020 – McDonald declared that the CRH’s renovation could be completed by the first quarter of 2022, if the Government were to speed up administrative procedures that he said had delayed the project.

• January 14, 2021 – Opposition Spokesman on Health, Dr Morais Guy, argued that the restoration could take between $10 billion and $12 billion to complete, up to four times what the committee had indicated it would cost, but Tufton scoffed at the suggestion.

• November 18, 2021 – Tufton announced at a contract-signing ceremony between the Ministry of Health and Wellness and engineering firm M&M Jamaica, held at the Sandals Montego Bay Resort in St James, that the resumption of the planned rehabilitation of the CRH should begin before the Christmas period that year.

• February 10, 2022 – The proposed budget for the 2022-2023 financial year was tabled. Out of the $912-billion estimates which were proposed at that time, $5.8 billion was announced as the new price tag for CRH’s completion.

• March 28, 2022 – Dr Jeffrey East was appointed by Tufton to chair the oversight committee, replacing McDonald following the latter’s resignation. At that time, Tufton indicated that he hoped the project would be completed in less than three years, before 2025 (by at least December 2024).

• May 4, 2022 – Guy observed that the budget presentation for the 2022-2023 financial year had stated that the CRH project would cost $5.8 billion to complete, but he reiterated that $4 billion had been spent up to that point, and that the total cost would double the proposed budget.