Completion of the long-delayed, new Scarborough Hospital in Tobago, inclusive of all the medical equipment to be placed in it, will cost taxpayers close to $500 million, Health Minister Jerry Narace said yesterday. It was originally estimated to cost $135 million and had an original deadline of 2005.
Narace made the disclosure yesterday during a tour of the hospital site along with Prime Minister Patrick Manning and senior Tobago House of Assembly officials.
’This contract is near $500 million with the equipment and that is the fixed equipment. We will still have some moveable equipment which we will move from the (old) Scarborough hospital and maybe just one or two small pieces. It will not exceed another US$2 (million) or US$3 million,’ Narace said.
On June 14, 2008, Narace had told the House of Representatives that China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) was then awarded a $241.3 million contract to complete the construction of the hospital and had submitted a tender for $236.3 million in respect of the supply of medical and other equipment. That figure plus the $241 million gave a total of $477.3 million.
Manning yesterday confirmed that CRCC will be supplying and maintaining, ’for quite sometime’, the medical equipment for the facility as well ’as part of a turnkey contract’ with the National Insurance Property Development Co, but he did not reveal a cost.
CRCC project manager Henry Yu told Manning he expects the hospital to be handed over by the end of May 2010. Manning did not give such a specific deadline after the tour yesterday.
’We expect the facility to be fully commissioned by the end of the third quarter of next year. It seems to be on schedule, on track and from what we can see, the quality of the work is of a very high standard,’ Manning said.
The project, which appears to be at an advanced stage, had been the subject of arbitration proceedings between the original contractor, Northern Hemisphere International (Caribbean) Ltd (NHIC) lost.
Diego Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley, had been the subject of allegations that material had been wrongfully removed from the hospital site to a private housing development in Tobago, owned by his wife, Sharon, but won a legal suit against the Integrity Commission for its investigation into those claims.
Asked about the controversies that have surrounded the new Scarborough Hospital, Manning said: ’You all don’t know how difficult it is to rectify works that were not properly done, that’s difficult...the hospital is about what, 65 per cent complete at this time, we’re very pleased about that.’
Manning took particular note ’of the fact that we have here, citizens of Trinidad and Tobago working along with the Chinese labour’ and shook the hand of one local worker who shouted a request to meet the Prime Minister.
