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04th
Feburary 2010
St. Jude’s
Gets Aussie Aid
Stan Bishop
The
gradual process towards normalizing the operations
of the St. Jude’s Hospital continues to
realize positive signs.
This week, the restorative efforts of the health
institution in the south of the island that
was beseiged by fire last September, received
financial aid, compliments the Australian government.
In an interview with The VOICE Monday afternoon,
Australian High Commissioner, H.E. Philip Kentwell,
said a meeting earlier in the day the gesture
was made to the government of St. Lucia.
“Prime minister Stephenson King approached
the Australian prime minister at the United
Nations General Assembly last September within
days of the St. Jude’s Hospital fire,”
the high commissioner said. “He had indicated
that St. Lucia really needed some assistance
in trying to deal with the problem. I’m
very happy to announce today that we’ve
advised the St. Lucia government that the Australian
government is going to provide as quickly as
possible half a million Australian dollars (EC$1,158,176.26)
towards urgently needed equipment and peripheral
work for the introduction of that equipment.”
The high commissioner said that last Saturday
he toured the burnt-out remains of the former
St. Jude’s Hospital, as well as the George
Odlum Stadium which has since been transformed
into a temporary hospital. He also had high
praise for the staff based at the latter.
“We saw how St. Jude’s Hospital
is working from the stadium. I’m very
impressed with the response and the work that
the administrators and the doctors have done.
I think it’s a great credit to the administration
and the staff down there that they’ve
been able to adapt,” Kentwell, who is
accredited to fourteen Caribbean countries,
said.
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Additionally, during his January
29 to February 1 visit to St. Lucia, the high
commissioner said he was engaged in discussions
with senior government officials, including
the permanent secretary in the prime minister’s
office as well as the permanent secretary
in the external affairs ministry. The meeting,
he said, related to initiatives to be undertaken
as per fulfilling the objectives of a memorandum
of understanding signed between Australia
and some Caribbean states at the recently-held
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM)
held in Port-of-Spain.
Apart from the financial gesture to St. Jude’s,
Kentwell said Australia’s support within
the region runs deeper, especially since the
change in the political landscape of his home
country just over two years ago.
“The new government of Australia has
shifted its focus from the traditional bilateral
relationships with our traditional partners,
looking much more strongly at the international
multilateral framework,” Kentwell said.
“Our current government believes very
strongly that, with the increasing numbers
of global issues, whether they be global trade,
climate change, the sharp global financial
meltdown, that there are increasing numbers
of global issues that really need to be dealt
with in the multilateral arena.”
The MOU signed in Trinidad, he said, provides
for some 60 million Australian dollars to
be disbursed to the Caricom states over the
next four years. Australia has also committed
15 million Australian dollars to the restorative
efforts currently underway in earthquake-devastated
Haiti.
“We’re engaged in this region
for a number of reasons, principal among them
being Australia’s need to get to know
the area more intimately,” Kentwell
said.
Discuss
Story
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