Cab­i­net has agreed to al­lo­cate an ad­di­tion­al $157 mil­lion to four of the coun­try’s five Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties (RHAs) as they ramp up the fight against the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

The North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) will get the li­on’s share of the ex­tra fund­ing - $129.9 mil­lion - in what will be the first in­jec­tion of funds the RHAs will re­ceive for the dri­ve.

The an­nounce­ment was made by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley dur­ing yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s. The PM said the mon­ey will be dis­trib­uted to the four RHAs in Trinidad.

Giv­ing a break­down of how the funds will be dis­trib­uted, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said the $157m will be spent in four ar­eas - con­sum­ables, hu­man re­sources, in­fra­struc­ture and equip­ment. He said con­sum­ables would en­tail ac­quir­ing gloves, sur­gi­cal caps and sy­ringes; hu­man re­sources would re­quire ramp­ing up of house of­fi­cers, con­sul­tants and en­rolled nurs­ing as­sis­tants; in­fra­struc­ture would be build­ing iso­la­tion rooms and pro­vid­ing quar­an­tine ar­eas for health care work­ers; while they would need to pur­chase ven­ti­la­tors, car­diac mon­i­tors and vi­tal sign mon­i­tors.

Deyals­ingh said the East­ern Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty will re­ceive $6.2 mil­lion “which would in­clude the ex­pen­di­ture that they are in­cur­ring at (Camp) Ba­lan­dra.” Last week, the min­istry placed 68 pa­tients in quar­an­tine at Camp Ba­lan­dra af­ter they ar­rived home from an ill-fat­ed Caribbean cruise where pas­sen­gers test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus.

“Cause that is not a free ser­vice. That par­tic­u­lar fa­cil­i­ty is cost­ing us about $85,000 a month, where we had put in those 68 cit­i­zens who came in from the cruise.”

The North-West RHA will get $16.6m and the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty $4.5 mil­lion.

Hav­ing giv­en in­struc­tions to the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T to re-pro­gramme the Ari­ma Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, which is now ready, Deyals­ingh said they are do­ing the same thing with the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal.

“So in case we have to use the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal for COVID-19, that will be up and run­ning just as a pri­ma­ry care fa­cil­i­ty in the not too dis­tant fu­ture.”

Deyals­ingh said the NR­CHA will re­ceive the li­on’s share since it is the fo­cal point for the COVID-19 re­sponse. The NR­CHA is in charge of the Cau­ra Health Fa­cil­i­ty, which has 100-plus beds and the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal, where all pos­i­tive pa­tients have been placed. The mon­ey will be al­lo­cat­ed to the RHAs over the next three to six months.

“This is go­ing to be a marathon. This is go­ing to cov­er the first few miles of that marathon,” Deyals­ingh said.

This ini­tial in­jec­tion is not the fi­nal sum, Deyals­ingh point­ed out.

“How­ev­er, things like in­fra­struc­ture and equip­ment will be a one time cost. The vari­able costs that would change with time will be con­sum­ables be­cause the longer this goes on the more con­sum­ables you will use.”

He said Cab­i­net has agreed that if and when cir­cum­stances dic­tate, ad­di­tion­al fund­ing will be pro­vid­ed.