Work moving apace to upgrade Leonora Hospital into a SMART facility

Works on the Leonora Cottage Hospital are moving apace as it is being retrofitted to function as a SMART hospital.

During Monday’s COVID-19 update, Minister of Health, Hon. Dr Frank Anthony said the rehabilitation of the facility has progressed with internal works expected to commence soon.

“I understand that they’ve now done quite a lot of work externally and will start doing some internal works shortly to redesign the flow of their hospitals so that’s ongoing and they are on schedule.”

The Minister said once the internal upgrades start, services would be shifted temporarily to a nearby health centre to ensure that citizens have access to health care as the renovations are being done.

“We’re trying to minimise the disruption at Leonora so alternative arrangements have been made for the facilities next door to take up some of the challenges if the services are disrupted there and similarly with those other hospitals.

So far, they have not been too many complaints about the disruption, and we are trying to push the contractors to finish in a timely manner,” he said.

Minister Anthony also disclosed that the Diamond facility will soon be handed over. 

“They can hand that over to us so that we can put it back into operation and I anticipate by later in the month that we’d be able to do so,” he said.

The ‘SMART Hospital’ concept refers to a health facility which provides standard and efficient health care while at the same time being climate resilient. The Diamond Diagnostic Centre, Leonora Diagnostic and Treatment Centre, Mabaruma and Lethem Regional Hospitals and the Paramakatoi Health Centre were identified to be upgraded to SMART hospitals.

The$835 million (US$4.175 million) initiative is funded by the United Kingdom Department for International Development.