Pausing PEH Work Bad For Patients

Guernsey's health committee president says not fully modernising the hospital will affect the ability to reduce waiting lists.

Deputy Al Brouard says he'll fight for the PEH Phase 2 modernisation work to be included in the first round of spending on major capital projects.

Earlier this week, Policy and Resources announced it was favouring the transformation of education, as some of the current school facilities were 'shabby.'

But deputy Brouard is hoping to persuade the senior committee, and States members, that health should get the money:

"Both myself and the committee are disappointed. We've got a couple of months to persuade P&R, and our colleagues, that we need to continue with Phase 2 of the hospital modernisation."

"We've already started. In fact, we're £7.5M already spent. We've got a contractor on site working now on Phase 1. It would be foolish, in my view, to suspend operations and wait five years and pay even more to have the same job done over again."

Policy and Resources has created a list of works to be prioritised as a result of the GST debate earlier this year. It warned at the time that a failure to increase revenue by introducing the tax would result in spending being cut across committees and on major projects. Among the other projects it's recommending move to the 'pipeline' or 'on hold' phase are the new dairy, coastal defence, any moves to lengthen the runway and the modernisation of St Peter Port harbour.

Education will get priority, but deputy Brouard says it makes no sense financially to stop work after Phase 1, which is the current upgrade to Critical Care and patient and staff facilities:

"If you're trying to contract out in five year's time for the same size of building, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a lot more expensive than it is today."

And he warns that pausing after Phase 1 is complete, to spend the money on education instead, will affect patient care across the community:

"We know the demographics are against us. Some of our provision is on the wrong level and we need to ensure we have access to theatres quickly. We need to increase our orthopaedics, we need to be ready for the next pandemic. This is not something that we've just dreamed up, this has been molded by politicians and staff over many, many years, to have the optimum hospital we can."