BY PETER ZOLEVEKE II
THE Honiara City Council (HCC) owned Multi-Purpose sporting facility will be fully operational into a new ‘field hospital’ by the end of this week.
Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare made this known during his nationwide address on Tuesday 27th October.
“Fellow citizens, I had referred to my government’s efforts to temporarily convert the HCC Multi-purpose hall into a Field Hospital for Covid-19 asymptomatic cases. Work on this project was temporarily put on the backburner when we shifted focus to the Western Boarder quarantine and Isolation facilities,” PM Sogavare announced.
“With the four new asymptomatic cases of Covid-19 and the likelihood for more cases, we now urgently need to complete the work on this Field Hospital to ensure it is operational by the end of this week.”
He said that a team from the government’s Oversight Committee together with the Ministry of Health and Medical Services visited the facility earlier this week and are confident it can be completed before the end of this week.
“The completion of this facility is now the most important priority for government to ensure it is ready before we complete the second round of testing of all the passengers,” the Prime Minister said.
The facility will be ready for asymptomatic cases of covid-19.
On the same note Oversight Committee Chairman, Dr Jimmie Rodgers also confirmed the sporting facilities transition area to curb the likely surge of the virus.
“The Multi-Purpose Hall is now the field hospital; it’s an expansion of the national referral hospital into an area where designed to cope with the surge,” Dr Rodgers said.
“We don’t have rooms at the NRH for those, and it’s much better to have it close to the hospital.
He added that the facilities will not be used like a quarantine center.
“It will not be like a quarantine center, it is basically a three model hospital. Now if you look at other bigger countries in the World, they used soccer stadiums, public halls they have been remodeled into Covid hospitals and that’s exactly what we’ve doing except ours is better because the environment inside is more controlled and security is assured,” Rodgers added.
Dr Rodgers also confirmed that they are mounting CCTVs at the facilities to monitoring patients.
He adds that the Multi- Purpose facility will accommodate up to 80 patients.
