[dropcap]W[/dropcap]e hear it all the time: “Proper healthcare is a human right.” One would think that with all the noise already made about the St. Jude Hospital and with the plans set forth by the current administration, it would now be a smooth sail to adequate healthcare for the 70,000 patients the facility was meant to serve, but the waters surrounding the dream situation grow stormier and stormier.
It’s a well known story, still it bears repeating: When the hospital burned down nearly nine years ago, killing three, its operations were moved to the George Odlum Stadium—temporarily, it was emphasized. Alas, it seems we turn into Humpty Dumpty when it comes to words meaning whatever one wants them to mean at any given time. We continue to haggle over the number of messages conveyed by “as soon as convenient”. We were ready to draw blood over what Kenny Anthony meant in 2001 when he promised that he would invest $100 million into the private sector “immediately after taking office”. A minister of education boldly told the nation “immediately” did not mean what they imagined it did; certainly not right off the bat! And now it seems our politicians on both sides of the fence consider “temporary” synonymous with, well, “whenever”!
The resurrection process started a year after the St. Jude fire. No matter, the sports stadium that is itself falling apart at the seams continues to pass for a hospital at the service of the thousands who live in the south of the island. As for the “state of the art facility” promised several times between 2011 and 2016 by the Kenny Anthony government, it’s as sick as the George Odlum Stadium, if from an apparently uncurable ailment, while arguments fly this way and that as to who is most cupable, who is accountable for the millions on the medical bridge to nowhere.
Was it the Stephenson King administration that held office at the time of the fire and started building a “temporary” replacement reconstruction not long afterward? Was it due to “lack of foresight” on the part of the Anthony government? Was it mismanagement of funds by project managers? Unqualified engineers who greenlighted a project deserving of a gigantic, red X? Whatever the reasons, there can be no denying the poor and sick are suffering the consequences and, by all indications will continue to pay in the worst way for some time to come.
In 2017 the United Workers Party administration stated their intentions for St Jude after a technical audit was conducted: it would be bad business as usual at the makeshift hospital, since the audit had declared the reconstructed walls and hallways below demanded standards and unsafe. Meanwhile, the politicians continued to do what they do best, even as blood pressure levels rose among restless citizens.
Last week, on Wednesday, April 25, the previously related Saint Lucia Medical and Dental Association seemed to throw petrol on the fire that threatened the “half-finished” St. Jude. “These deplorable circumstances in which we are expected to deliver healthcare services to the public account for the poor quality of our healthcare delivery outcomes and increasing numbers of unwarranted deaths, all continuing to spiral out of control,” said the SLMDA President, Dr. Alphonsus St. Rose in a public statement.
The Association’s concerns were emboldened when the opposition Saint Lucia Labour Party issued its own barrage of criticism at the Chastanet administration. The party underscored that the government had since July of 2016 stopped work on the St. Jude Hospital Reconstruction Project and “as a result of the conditions in the Stadium people are literally dying”—a fact, they said, that was “confirmed by medical professionals” but which St. Jude Hospital officials countered on May 2. In a brief interview with the STAR, a spokesperson unsurprisingly confirmed staff had grown wary of existing frustration surrounding the situation but no deaths had occurred that might be linked to conditions at the makeshift hospital.
On April 26 Prime Minister Allen Chastanet reacted to conclusions by a group comprising MDA personnel and an architect that had toured the St Jude Reconstruction site, including that the half-complete structure could and should be completed by 2019. Chastanet divulged that, as advised by an outside technician, hospital reconstruction could continue as is, where a few corners would need to be cut, but the facility would be of low standard. Said the prime minister: “What happens is, as you start building and you start saying, ‘Okay, maybe we shouldn’t cut the corner here, we should cut the corner here,’ it adds to the cost and that’s exactly what was taking place before.” He reminded that already some $118 million had been spent on the reconstruction, not all of it fully accounted for.
On Monday April 30, Economic Minister Guy Joseph revealed that the forensic audit was still underway. “No accounts were done for St Jude for the entire duration of the project,” he said. “Most hospitals take two to three years to be completed. But here you had a hospital under construction for six years, with no end in sight. Any right-thinking person would’ve undertaken a proper assessment of an inherited structure before going forward.”
He promised that within the next 30 days the prime minister will provide Saint Lucians with detailed updates on what has taken place so far and what will transpire in the immediate future.
