APPROXIMATELY 300 children are on a waiting list for cardiac surgery at the Bustamante Hospital for Children, and they will have to wait at least another three months before the first of those surgeries are done.

The disclosure was made yesterday at a meeting of the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC), where Members of Parliament drilled health officials about the availability and timeliness of critical diagnostic services and other issues in the health sector.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health Sancia Bennett Templer said that the new cardiac wing is ready, and furniture is to be installed by mid-August.

“We are now finalising all of the equipment that will be needed,” she said.

Lamenting the pace of the project, which started more than five years ago, committee member Mikael Phillips stated: “It’s better late than never but if you’re waiting five years for a project like this which started out as a gift, as a ministry – both successive governments – when it doesn’t become a priority in an instance like this, then it touches right at the core”.

Bennett Templer said that, in the meantime, critical patients have been sent overseas and others have had surgeries performed by special missions, “but I understand and it’s no excuse for the fact that we still have 300 cases awaiting surgeries”.

Former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller broke ground for the cardiac wing at the paediatric hospital in February 2013. The facility should increase the number of intensive care unit beds in the health system generally, and reduce the number of children waiting for surgery. It is a public-private partnership with Sagicor Investment Limited, Chain of Hope UK, Digicel Jamaica, the Caribbean Heart Menders, and the Congenital Heart Institute of Florida.

Meanwhile, the ministry’s submission to the PAAC showed that there is a waiting period of eight to 10 months for oral surgery at the Bustamante Hospital for Children, three to six months for orthopaedic elective surgeries, while emergency cases are treated upon arrival and urgent cases within one to three months. Children have to wait approximately five months for paediatric general surgery, and four months for paediatric urology procedures.