IRONSHORE, St James – A 400-student state-of-the-art medical training facility is set to open its doors in Montego Bay by this October. The Bioprist Institute of Medical Sciences School of Medicine and Health Professionals will be located in Ironshore, on the outskirts of the western city, in a 50,000-square foot former warehouse now being refurbished at a cost of US$14 million. Students will be both local and international, and another US$6 million will be spent to build nearby dorms consisting of 48 one-bedroom apartments.

Institute Chairman Dr Guna Muppuri, who is also the founder, president and CEO of the Bioprist Group, is convinced the facility will be a game changer for health care in Jamaica. Augmented reality and other advanced technology will be used during training sessions.

“Our dream is to establish a second-to-none campus,” he told the Jamaica Observer West after a recent tour of the location that also included representatives from the Jamaica Special Economic Zone Authority (JSEZA).

“Our vision is to change the Jamaican economy, particularly Montego Bay and it’s environs. This is going to have a ripple effect on the surrounding communities,” Dr Muppuri predicted.

He anticipates spin-offs that will benefit other sectors of the economy.

“The real estate market will go up, housing requirements will come [because] we need student accommodations. Of course we are building our own student accommodations right next to the school but that may not necessarily be enough,” he said.

“It’s going to create a lot of direct and indirect jobs. Students living here, they will be spending a lot of money here in Jamaica — and we want to be the destination for medical education for the entire Caribbean,” Dr Muppuri told Observer West.

Once the project is up and running successfully the greatest impact, though, will be on the local health-care sector that has long been hobbled by inadequate training facilities. The institute also ticks the box for suggestions made in the past for Jamaica to explore going into the field of medical training, a nod to the high global demand for health-care workers from the country. According to Dr Muppuri, his state-of-the-art facility will offer training driven by cutting edge technology.

“We are going to be using digital cadavers, the table will have four cadavers. We are going to be using human bodies preserved through plastination technology where you’ll have those bodies preserved for up to 10 years,” he said proudly.

He added that students will also learn by using tools such as HoloAnatomy that will be facilitated through augmented reality.

These and other tools, Dr Muppuri believes, will put the institution at the top tier of training facilities, and he anticipates that graduates will be able to get jobs not only in Jamaica but also in the United States, India and Africa.

“We are taking our Jamaica to the next level of KPOs, which is knowledge process outsourcing. For that you need to produce intellectuals, people that are bright and smart. My area of focus is health care and medicine, and what I can produce is medical professionals like doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, radiographers, nuclear medicine technologists — which is very critical for the health of any nation,” he said.

Interim chief executive officer for JSEZA, Kelli-Dawn Hamilton welcomed the institute.

“This will be a world-class facility, and it is what we want to see happening in Jamaica as it relates to economic development,” she told Observer West after the tour.

“We imagine that this will change the landscape for medical research and the outputs that will occur from this facility. We are very excited about it and we look forward to what expansions will occur and the impact on the economy,” she added.

Hamilton said the Bioprist Group of companies, a medical conglomerate, already operates under JSEZA guidelines, and they are looking forward to providing further support for its latest venture.

“We are very happy, as the Special Economic Zone Authority, to be able to facilitate a project like this through our SEZ regime by offering the fiscal incentives that make it competitive for this kind of operation to take place,” Hamilton said.

As part of the SEZ the institute has access to a raft of benefits that will foster development, including tax breaks and special import licences.

“Our school of medicine and health professionals will be nestled in that special economic zone building, which has given a distinct advantage for the landlord (which is also our company) that has a special economic zone licence to bring in extra resources, premium resources, to the table. So when we launch this KPO from that building, it will be a statement,” promised Dr Muppuri.