Residents of Point Fortin and Environs are up in arms over the decision made by the Health Ministry to convert the new Point Fortin Hospital to a Covid-19 Facility. Only yesterday patients were transferred from the Point Fortin Hospital to the San Fernando General Hospital in the wee hours of the morning. This came in the wake of the old Area Hospital becoming a Covid-19 step-down facility just over one week ago.
Several residents reached out to southsidenewstt expressing their disgusts with the decision by the South West Regional Health Authority, since they will have to travel to San Fernando or Sipaira for Primary Health Care and Emergency Services which some are afraid they could become more exposed to the dreaded virus. Southsidenewstt understands, thirty thousand residents will be directly affected by the decision. One caller also says, after waiting some forty years for a new hospital it is now taken away from us in a flash, we again have to travel to San Fernando.
In a release yesterday, SWRHA says the Point Fortin Health Centre will remain open from 8 am – 8 pm daily; however, there’s no mention of Cedros and Icacos. When we visited the Point Fortin Health Centre around 7 pm on today, the facility was closed.
Some callers to our newsroom have since suggested alternative sites to house Covid-19 patients such as the Community Centre in Techier, New Village, Gonzales, Lot 10, the Indoor Arena, and the former Petrotrin Administration Building. Southsidenewstt understand since the new hospital became a Covid-19 facility yesterday it is at near capacity with residents for the southwest area of Trinidad.
Southsidenewstt attempted to reach the Chief Executive Officer of the South West Regional Health Authority; however, calls to his mobile phone went unanswered.
