A groundbreaking ceremony is set for Tuesday May 16th for a new hospital facility on the island of Grand Bahama.
Managing Director of the Public Hospitals Authority Aubynette Rolle is on Grand Bahama for the event and spoke to ZNS News about what residents can expect. “One of the things we’re going to do is the first phase which is the starting off of tomorrow is what we call the outpatient clinic areas. That will be able to accommodate all of our out patient care for those persons and really what we call the preventative side of health. As well as there’s going to be a surgical suite to be able to do multiple surgeries, we call it day cases. So, you know, those sort of procedures where you can come in, you’re prebooked, and then you move forward following your procedure you’re able to be discharged. But we also recognize that there going to be some cases where you still can’t be discharged and that’s why the Rand Memorial here will still be operational while that is going on,” Rolle said.
On the new hospital set to be constructed will include a maternity ward Rolle said, “once we have maternity patients you know sometimes patients come in and they don’t have what we call the normal birth, the vaginal birth. They have what we call lower segment caesarean sections. They’re able to prebook and have that done there as well and have that inpatient care there with a specialized group of outpatient OB physicians as well as midwives. So tomorrow is the beginning of that. And then following that we move into what we call the tertiary level care which is the big acute care hospital. That hospital is intended to have one hundred and twenty six beds.”
According to Rolle the first phase of the new hospital will be completed in fifteen to eighteen months.
