IN a bid to improve its infrastructure and accommodate the growing demand for health-care services, the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) has broken ground to reroute its ring road, a $278-million project that will facilitate the phased development of five medical towers on the hospital’s grounds.

The project will see the demolition of buildings used to house medical personnel on the hospital ground and a section of the ring road, creating a green field that will facilitate the space needed for one of five six-storey medical towers and a new car park.

During his remarks at the contract signing and groundbreaking at the UHWI on Tuesday, Prime Minister Andrew Holness noted that the current layout of the hospital is ineffective and in need of modernisation.

“The current hospital infrastructure, with its ageing buildings and inefficient layout, poses numerous challenges from maintenance issues to overcrowded departments. The need for comprehensive redevelopment is evident,” said Holness.

“The proposed redevelopment aims to address these challenges by modernising facilities, enhancing department synergy, and expanding critical care services. The operation of modern technologies and the provision of state-of-the-art facilities will further elevate the hospital’s status and capabilities, ensuring that the UHWI remains a centre of excellence in the region,” he added.

Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton said that the procurement process for the construction of the tower is well-advanced. Demolition activities are projected to start within a week.

“We’re almost at the end of the final internal designs, at which point we will go to market for a contractor and begin the process of selecting and finalising plans to break ground for [the tower]. The facility is going to signal another big effort at the renewal of our infrastructure. It will involve all new equipment… and appropriately so, it will place the UHWI in its rightful position to lead the charge not just for health care and advancing health-care leadership in Jamaica, but also in the Caribbean,” said Tufton.

Medical chief of staff at the UHWI Carl Bruce said that currently housing for medical personnel spans several acres of land that could otherwise be used for the transformation of the hospital.

“What the architects have done is, they have designed a masterplan to say we have to go up with the accommodation. So, rather than spreading it out over several acres, they’re designing and approaching the National Housing Trust to ensure that we still have the medical personnel that we need on the hospital compound, but rather than spreading it out over five acres, they’re gonna go up with modern living spaces,” he explained.

Dr Bruce said that the hospital is in discussions with the principal of the University of West Indies, Mona to use the university accommodations to house medical personnel until the construction is complete.

“Each of these towers will have a different specialist area. So, our concept is like an airport, and you have a concourse, and you have different terminals that you go in, and that terminal could be surgery, medicine, paediatric, obstetrics, neonatal care,” he explained.

“We could not start the first tower within the space beside the specialist block because the tower is 120,000 square feet, six floors plus a basement, so because the road is so tight on the area that we have identified where we could start, we have to move the road so that we have enough of a footprint for the building and so now the ring road has to be expanded and then we’ll put the building inside of the area of the ring road where we have created the space,” he said.

The UHWI, formerly the University College Hospital, is the first teaching hospital in the region. The hospital received it first patient in September 1952, and at the time had an initial capacity of 200 beds.