CRH will be used as case study to restore large buildings – Tufton

WESTERN BUREAU:

Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton has doubled down on his intentions to commission a case study on the lengthy rehabilitation of the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) in Montego Bay, St James, in order to avoid repeating some of the pitfalls of the past.

Tufton made the commitment at a contract-signing ceremony between the Ministry of Health and Wellness and the engineering firm M&M Jamaica in Montego Bay on Thursday.

The projected work, which will include the stripping down of the hospital’s main building, will be done at a cost of $1.6 billion and will be overseen by a joint oversight committee, to include representatives of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“A hospital is not a typical project, and it is important that we realign our expectations. CRH has been a teaching moment, to date, and I am getting a team to write up a case study as a classic case of how not to treat a hospital infrastructure, and maybe even government infrastructure, because we must learn these lessons,” said Tufton.

Tufton had previously announced similar plans to record the CRH’s restoration in March 2017, where The University of the West Indies and the University of Technology would collaborate on a research document using the restoration as a case study. A year later, in March 2018, Tufton said he would table a parliamentary motion for the hospital’s rehabilitation to be recorded for historical purposes.

During last Thursday’s ceremony, the health minister acknowledged that the complexity of the CRH’s 10-floor structure will require thorough work in order to be completed successfully.

“The challenges will be significant [because] the CRH is not just one of the largest buildings in Jamaica; it is probably one of the most complex, and it will be one of the most complicated construction sites. There is no ifs and/or buts in my mind about that, and it is really going to require all hands on deck,” said Tufton.

Meanwhile, M&M Jamaica’s Managing Director, Donald Mullings, promised that his company would make use of Montego Bay’s local and available construction skill sets to complete the CRH project.

“The M&M way is to involve the people of Montego Bay; and I am putting it to you that the skills and energies are in Montego Bay to ensure that when this hospital is finished, you can say this hospital was repaired by our workers for their children and their children’s children,” said Mullings.

The CRH, which was built in 1974, first began experiencing noxious fumes in September 2016, resulting in the hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department being vacated. A few months later, in February 2017, the fumes affected operations on the building’s first three floors, resulting in several of its facilities being relocated.

The fumes were subsequently found to have been caused by fibreglass particles emanating from the building’s 20-year-old ventilation system, which had just been put back in operation at that time. Since then, there have been at least two projected timelines for completion of the hospital’s restoration work, including dates in November 2019 and the first quarter of 2022.