Belair Clinic to be upgraded to a SMART health facility

The Belair Clinic is targetted for upgrade to a SMART health facility.

Parliamentary Representative for West St George, Minister of Education Curtis King said, “we are trying to enhance it so that certain services that are not available now will be available.”

He was speaking to members of the media on Monday, February 13, at the Belair Government School where a refurbished library was being re-opened.

King said in order to facilitate a full refurbishment of the existing health facility the clinic will be relocated later this year.

“The services being offered would be offered elsewhere. We have identified the Community Center at Daphne as the place that this clinic will be relocated to,” King said.

“Given however, the government’s thrust into making sure that all of our citizens have easy access to health facilities, this clinic is one that has been identified for significant enhancement. So what we are going to be doing this year, 2023, is that we are going to enhance this up to the level of a smart facility.”

King also said “we have a little issue because there’s someone staying in the community centre that we have to relocate, but we have done the preparatory work to ensure that the building up there can be enhanced during the first to second quarter of this year.”

Following the relocation of the resident at the Community Centre, work will then commence on the building that houses the existing clinic “so that it could host or accommodate the sort of services that are needed.”

King said while the designs are close to completion, he had not yet seen them so “would not be in a position yet to indicate costs and length of time. But soon we’ll have that information, and we’ll share it with the general public.”

The existing facility originally consisted of a clinic, doctor’s quarters, and several houses for the medical workers.

“In the early period, we had basically resident doctors and nurses. However, in 1951, the facility was handed over to the Ministry of Education, so out of that we have the Belair Government School,” King explained.

One section was maintained as the health clinic, but the area representative said “this health clinic has gone through several changes over the years” including some expansion.

Meanwhile last Monday, a number of items to enhance the delivery of health care to residents of the community were handed over to the staff at the Belair Clinic on behalf of Reverend Mark Cumberbatch, a Vincentian church leader who currently resides in the USA. A former student at the Blair Government School, Cumberbatch lived about 200 yards away from the school, and has consistently donated items to the schools in Belair as well as the Belair Clinic.