PRESS RELEASE – A high-level private sector official has lamented that after almost nine years, Saint Lucians are still without the services of a fully functional and decent health facility in the South.
Writing in the Saint Lucia Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture publication ‘ED’s Perspective’, the Executive Director of the private sector organisation, Brian Louisy, observed that the Owen King EU Hospital (OKEUH) still has not been opened despite an opening ceremony with pomp and pageantry in early 2016.
“These are two examples of poor governance and project management,” Louisy asserted.
“The public sector must be held to account for such colossal failures, to ensure such never reoccur,” he wrote.
Louisy noted that the government had announced that the OKEUH will operate as a Statutory Body with the intention of, once open, providing a broadened scope of health services to this country and opening the door to Medical Tourism.
He recalled that Government had said that it will keep the site of the St. Jude Hospital with some of the existing structures at the current site being utilised and a new wing being built around the core facilities.
The Chamber official observed that the new wing will be built within 18 months from commencement of construction and the patients and staff of the George Odlum Stadium will then be moved into the structure.
However he noted that after almost nine years, with no construction work over the last two years, Saint Lucians are still “without the services of a fully functional and decent health facility in the south, while the OKEUH has not been opened.