MONTEGO BAY, ST James — Though an end-of-2024 deadline given by the health minister was missed, regional director for Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA), St Andrade Sinclair is adamant that everything is on track for the phased reoccupation of Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) in St James.

“We’re in January now, so we’re working on it. It’s in this month. We’re still working on it. Nothing has changed. We’re still within schedule,” he assured the Jamaica Observer on Monday. “I went up and I looked, and everything looked almost ready.”

CRH has been undergoing major rehabilitation for the past seven years, with several deadlines missed as the scope of work expanded to address unexpected challenges. As the work dragged on, Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton shied away from giving new deadlines. But last October he did say phased reoccupation would start by the end of last year.

“On one floor, where the administrative department was located, they are now finalising the internals of that area. We anticipate, hopefully by year end [at] the latest, that our key administrative staff will now reoccupy that section of the facility. Remember, the approach to Cornwall was that we would phase [it in] floor by floor over time to next year [2025],” Tufton explained then.

On Monday an optimistic Sinclair said the plan is still to begin with administrative staff. He has predicted “a fantastic year for the region” during which all four hospitals under the WRHA umbrella — CRH, Falmouth Public General in Trelawny, Noel Holmes in Hanover, and Savanna-la-Mar Public General in Westmoreland — will see improvements.

CRH will see the installation of a CT scan machine with a whopping 160 slides, and digital X-ray machines are currently being installed or are scheduled to be installed at all hospitals in the western region.

A new 750 kVA generator, which is currently being cleared for importation, will be installed at the hospital in Westmoreland while four upgraded operating theatres are to be rolled out in Trelawny.

As for Noel Holmes Hospital, the smallest in the region, major renovation was recently completed within the maternity ward, labour and delivery section, as well as a minor operating theatre.

By the middle of this year the 220-bed Western Children and Adolescents Hospital, which is currently under construction on the grounds of CRH, is scheduled to be completed. It will provide medical services for children up to 18 years old.

Sinclair also revealed that regional administrative staff now in rented buildings at Freeport and Fairview in St James will eventually be housed in a building on the CRH compound.

According to an Observer source, the building was once part of the hospital’s staff quarters. To accommodate the rehabilitation work being done, it now houses some hospital staff and offices. The goal is to have the building retrofitted to accommodate additional staff.

“That will be by the end of the year because we have to build it out. We did the design already, internally, and that has been approved by all of us already. It’s just now waiting on an estimate for that to be built out,” explained Sinclair.

When completed, the building will accommodate all technical staff from Freeport, the St James Health Service Environmental Health Unit from Sunset Boulevard near the airport, regional project staff, epidemiologists, regional technical directors, among others.

In addition to work being done at the hospitals, several clinics are being refurbished across the region. Meanwhile, the official opening of a Child and Adolescent Therapeutic Centre on Humber Avenue in Montego Bay is set to take place this month.

“That’s going to be a major thing between Sandals, the minister of education, the ministry of national security, and the Western Regional Health Authority. All of us [are coming] together to roll out a youth clinic,” stated Sinclair.