MONTEGO BAY, St James — Clinical coordinator at Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH), Dr Delroy Fray, has an ambitious plan for sections of the hospital that were once used as st
aff quarters.

Some of the dorms were temporarily converted to wards during the ongoing refurbishing of CRH and he wants them to stay that way when the main building is up and running again. He thinks this will reduce the pressure on the new facilities that will be located in the main building.

Dr Fray made the suggestion during last Thursday’s meeting of Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“I have a plan to set it up in what we call a high-dependency unit for medical patients — people with heart attacks who are septic, that type of thing — so that they are not on the regular ward,” he told those gathered.

“It’s a little step down from the intensive care unit, and in the new building we are going to equip one half-section of it for intensive care,” Dr Fray expounded.

When noxious fumes forced the closure of CRH’s main building in 2017 a decision was made to relocate a number of services. The staff quarters were heavily utilised in providing medical care.

Dr Fray explained that those areas had been transformed into spaces that can adequately provide medical services and therefore should continue to be used for those purposes as he sought to allay fears that staff quarters would be reduced.

“We are not going to put back all of that in housing. In fact, the Children Adolescent Hospital, they built 50 housing units for our staff so all of that will be there,” he stated when asked by the
Jamaica Observer.

“We will put back some in housing but we are going to use some of it because if you see those ward space, they are nice so we are going to keep some of them,” he added.

The expectations are that this project should get going in 2026 when operations have resumed at CRH.

Dr Fray thinks the additional bed space will go a far way in addressing shortages in the accident and emergency department.

“We are going to get 220 from the children’s hospital. We are going to equip back 430, that’s 650,” he explained.

During Thursday’s meeting he also highlighted progress made in reducing the backlog in minor operations by about 500. As the country’s health-care system struggled under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic, procedures not deemed life-threatening were pushed back so that emergencies could be accommodated. The health sector has been playing catch-up, and private facilities have been enlisted to help clear the backlog at State-run facilities like CRH.

“It’s a major success,” said Dr Fray of the work done to ease the strain at CRH.

He said grateful patients have spoken glowingly about the progress made.

“Those were not emergencies so you could hardly get them into the system. It was a great idea, brilliant idea,” he stated.

“If we were not able to do that, more people would have suffered — there is no question about that — and we continue to look at the thing to make it better and better,” added Dr Fray.