Prime Min­is­ter-des­ig­nate Stu­art Young has called for a re­newed na­tion­al fo­cus on main­te­nance as he ad­dressed the of­fi­cial open­ing of the new­ly con­struct­ed Cen­tral Block of the Port of Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Speak­ing at the rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny a short while ago Min­is­ter Young em­pha­sized that while the state-of-the-art fa­cil­i­ty marks a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment in health­care in­fra­struc­ture, its long-term suc­cess hinges on sus­tained care and prop­er main­te­nance.

“Too of­ten we get car­ried with the new build, to the NWRHA team we are look­ing at you. Main­te­nance has to be a cul­ture we re in­tro­duce and some­thing we are fo­cus­ing on. ”

The new Cen­tral Block, a mod­ern ad­di­tion to one of the coun­try’s old­est hos­pi­tals, is ex­pect­ed to sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­prove health­care de­liv­ery in the cap­i­tal. It re­places the pre­vi­ous build­ing, which was deemed struc­tural­ly un­safe.

Young urged health of­fi­cials, ad­min­is­tra­tors, and the wider pub­lic sec­tor to adopt a proac­tive ap­proach to main­te­nance.

NWRHA CEO An­tho­ny Blake al­so not­ed that pre­vi­ous health ser­vices such as the eye clin­ic that had to be re­lo­cat­ed due to on­go­ing con­struc­tion will now re­turn to the Port of Spain hos­pi­tal.