A new 230-bed children’s hospital in Trinidad, which is being financed by the Chinese government, has highlighted the exorbitant and possibly corrupt costs associated with the two small hospitals constructed in Providenciales and Grand Turk.
The TCI facilities currently provide a total of just 30 rooms.
The new Trinidad facility is budgeted to cost $150 million, or some $652,000 per bed, while the TCI buildings have been mortgaged for $120 million, representing a cost of $4 million per bed, or more than six times the projected cost of the new hospital in Trinidad.
In fact, with a reported interest rate of 12 percent, the TCI facilities will end up costing TC Islanders nearly $500 million by the time the mortgage is paid off.
The new facility in Trinidad will not only include 230 patient rooms but also a central medical facility with most modern high-end medical equipment, an integral hotel, shopping mall and other amenities, such as a burns unit, central pharmacy, and children and adult casualty clinics. A helipad will be provided on the roof of the hospital.
The new Trinidad hospital will also contain an educational centre to train nursing, medicine and pharmacology staff. Completion is scheduled for March 2015.
