Construction works on the original St. Jude Hospital Construction site resumed yesterday after, -reportedly, about six years of inactivity.
In 2016, the former United Workers Party (UWP) administration halted renovation works at the site, and subsequently, a series of technical audits and reviews on the St. Jude Hospital Reconstruction Construction Project was conducted. The review process, which included a XCD $900,000 audit commissioned by the former Administration, concluded that construction work was nearly 80% completed when the project was arbitrarily stopped.
Consequently, last August, government appointed an independent technical committee, to assess the status of the state of works being undertaken on the St. Jude Hospital Construction project. The committee’s report concluded that construction on Phase I [the original construction site] could have been completed as early as 2017.
“Work is going to start at St Jude’s (Hospital) tomorrow …so all the drones that have been promised can come,” Prime Minister Phillip Pierre told reporters, Monday.
Referring to the highly anticipated commencement of construction works at the hospital site, PM Pierre exclaimed: “I’m delighted …it’s one of the best days of my life.”
Noting that something was amiss with the protracted works previously undertaken at the site, he declared that: “Somebody, somebody will have to pay for allowing buildings that were certified …by their own audit that the building were fit for the purpose and they could be converted into a hospital with some changes.”
While the debate rages on, on this issue of significant national importance to residents of the south and the country generally, the government says it has been guided by the recommendations from multiple technical audits and reviews on the St. Jude Hospital Construction Project.
Government sources report that PM Pierre chose the most prudent, safest and immediate option to deliver the St. Jude Hospital to the people of Saint Lucia.
Hitting at the past administration’s work load at the St Jude Hospital site, he added, “You left it for about five or six years …after you started it and you allowed bush and debris and what not, and you started something that is nowhere near competition.”
However, declared Pierre, “We are going to show the public of Saint Lucia, we’re going back to the original site, we are starting tomorrow (Tuesday) …and hopefully the people of the south will be out of the desperate situation at the stadium. You have my word for it.”