$1.6 Million Renovation at K.H.M.H. Completed
On Tuesday, the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital Authority announced that the nation’s referral hospital was back to one hundred percent. Essential services provided by the hospital were suspended for months after it was discovered that the roof was failing. Extensive renovations have been completed and today, the media was allowed to be part of a walkthrough of the hospital to view the upgrades to the operating theater suite and structural repairs. News Five’s Hipolito Novelo reports.
Hipolito Novelo, Reporting
After it was discovered that the roof at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital was failing, it was announced that works would commence on June eleventh, 2018. An assessment of K.H.M.H.’s infrastructure by local and international engineers revealed that further repairs were necessary, prompting the K.H.M.H.A. to raise one point six million dollars in order to restore the structural integrity of the hospital. This caused the hospital to suspend its elective services and go into emergency mode. Today, everything seemed normal at the K.H.M.H. as full services have been restored. News Five along and other media houses were shown the infrastructural improvements done over the past few months.
Michelle Cox-Hoare
Michelle Cox-Hoare, C.E.O., K.H.M.H.
“We started by doing renovation to the main operating theatre because there were some structure issues in terms of the tiles on the floor, gas lines, our surgical facilities. During the time we were doing the renovations for the operating theatre we ended up with the fault, the structural damage to the main beams of our facility and so it was like a simultaneous activities going on. We were working on improving and renovating our operating room basically to improve the standard and the quality services in there and at the same we had to respond to the structural damage.”
At the time it was discovered that the K.H.M.H. was experiencing structural failures, reinforcement pillars were temporarily installed. An engineering team from Mexico was brought in to inspect the damages and offer a permanent solution. K.H.M.H. reduced services by fifty percent, dealing only with deliveries, Caesarean sections, and life-threatening emergencies.
Michelle Cox-Hoare
“There was total disorganization and reorganization of services. Our operating theatre- what you say just now was completely transferred over to another area of the hospital, our labor and delivery area. So in that area we had two operating suites we had to be using and for that reason we had to reduce our surgical services to emergencies and urgent cases only. Since last week we are back practically to five suites operational. It was challenging to the staff. The staff, they were able to respond to all the changes that we had to make. We had to work amidst the construction. There were some barricades throughout the entire hospital, restricted access in certain areas. The staff had to access the hospital through different corridors so it was challenging. So through it all we tried to maintain optimal services given the challenges. Here we are now with the entire area repaired within record time and our services restored completely.”
The K.H.M.H.A. has committed to address these sorts of issues in a professional and systematic way to guarantee the best possible outcomes with minimum disruption to the essential services that the hospital provides.
Michelle Cox-Hoare
“The hospital has been here for twenty three years. There are other assessments that we plan to put in place in terms of ensuring moving forward there are keys areas where we will go in and do in-depth assessment.”
Pablo Marin
Joining the media in the walkthrough was Health Minister Pablo Marin who encouraged Belizeans to pay whatever they owe to the K.H.M.H. so that the hospital can be in tip-top shape.
Pablo Marin, Minister of Health
“I am so happy because it was long time that the nurses, doctors, everybody was asking for us to repair it. It cost them one point six million. This is only telling the public, once you use the facility, pay what you use; pay your bills. If you look at the finance, bills or what is cost for you to do a surgery, for you to do delivery it is cheaper than the private sector. So why don’t you invest in what is cheaper? The work they are doing is in top service that we can have.”
Reporting for News Five, I am Hipolito Novelo.
