THE CULTURE, Health, Arts, Sports and Education (CHASE) Fund has approved $5 million towards an expansion project at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI).
CHASE chairman, Dr. Carlton Davis, said the Fund gave its support to the project as it "seeks to strengthen the hospital's ability to provide high-quality emergency and elective medical surgical operations to more patients. This will also help to keep the UHWI accredited as a teaching hospital in the future," said a CHASE release on the donation.
The $85 million expansion project which seeks to construct and equip two operating theatres, an intensive care unit and a seminar room is currently under way, and when completed, will increase the number of surgical operations that can be performed at the hospital.
The construction phase of the project is expected to be completed in January 2004. The UHWI will equip the new facilities and they are expected to be commissioned in mid 2004.
To date, the CHASE Fund has approved $31 million for health projects. Some $6 million of this amount has gone towards caring for AIDS patients and public education in AIDS; and $12 million to the Ministry of Health to promote healthy lifestyles.
