SMART Hospital Project is Underway

The Ministry of Health and the Pan American Health Organization, with sponsorship from the Department of International Development of the United Kingdom, are hosting town hall meetings across the country to obtain feedback from the public about the retrofitting of several health facilities.  The retrofitting of the facilities is a part of the PAHO SMART Hospital Project that is ongoing in the Caribbean and is being implemented independently in a number of countries in the Latin America and the Caribbean. But what does it mean for a hospital to be considered SMART? According to the Ministry of Health, it means that they have combined their structural and operation safety with green interventions. A News Five crew stopped in at the town hall meeting in Belmopan today.

Gary Longsworth

Dr. Gary Longsworth, National Focal Point, PAHO/WHO

“Where we are now, we are at a critical phase, because we have done everything, all the assessments, and evaluations. We have gotten feedback from the users of the facility and from the community and now we have developed the first draft design for the changes we would like to see. The changes are aimed to at making the facilities structurally stronger, more resilient to disasters, more environmentally friendly, more user friendly for the staff and the patients and to serve the communities better. And important aspect is that if we have a disaster, we would hope that by making these changes, that these facilities will survive the disaster intact and be available with minimum downtime to the communities to assist the communities after the disaster.”

The health facilities that are being retrofitted in Belize are the Palm Center Nursing Home in Belmopan, San Ignacio Community Hospital, Matron Roberts Polyclinic and the Cleopatra White Polyclinic in Belize City, Isabel Palma Polyclinic in San Antonio, Toledo and the Independence Polyclinic in Independence Village. The work being done is valued at around five to six million pounds.