 and welcome to St. Jude Hospital Reconstruction Project. I would like to invite Mr. Norman Edward, who is the Deputy Chairman of the Board of St. Jude, to officially welcome you to our ceremony this morning for the recommencement of the St. Jude Hospital Project. Let me welcome you to this part of Viewfort, St. Jude Hospital, and today I want to welcome you, not only as a member of the Board, but more specifically, as a Viewfortian, as a St. Lucian. I want to borrow a quote from the Prime Minister, where he said, this is one of the happiest days of his life. And indeed, you know, the Prime Minister gave his word. They had a meeting with the Board of St. Jude two weeks ago, and he gave his word. He gave his word to St. Lucian, he gave his word to Viewfortians that the work will commence on the 1st of November 2022. And here we are. Let's put our hands together for our Prime Minister. I would like to invite the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs to address you, particularly on behalf of Honourable Moses Moussa Jabatis, who is unable but very sad that he's not here for this occasion. Yes, Daniel? I would also like to extend apologies for the Honourable Moses Jabatis, our Minister for Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs, who unfortunately cannot be here to present here today, as he is currently representing St. Lucia at the Health Conference in Taiwan. This conference will be addressing some of the vital concepts to the development of the health sector, such as universal health coverage and chronic diseases, and will also provide the opportunity to develop the linkages required to establish vital support to the strengthening of our health sector and our national health profile. The Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs remains committed to the rehabilitation or reconstruction of the St. Jude Hospital in the south of the island, though not directly responsible for the management of the hospital, for which there is a board and a very competent management team, the Ministry as custodian of the delivery of health services and the gatekeepers of our national health profile has a major interest in the redevelopment and re-establishment of the services at the St. Jude Hospital. The implementation of universal health coverage remains the flagship vision of the Ministry as a means of providing access to a quality, affordable and equitable health care service. Therefore, we recognize that the holistic attainment of this objective requires a landscape that includes primary and secondary institutions that would deliver those services. Though the St. Jude Hospital has remained operational over the past 13 years, we are cognizant of the severe restrictions and limitations the institution and the staff members have faced during this time in the delivery of those services, sorry. In consideration of the foregoing and as directed by the Cabinet of Ministers, the Ministry of Health maintains oversight over this current project through the establishment of a project steering committee and the assignment of the requisite health planning services designed to provide technical planning support to the project management team, as well as the management of the hospital in matters pertaining to service provision, design and transitioning of the hospital to its new premises. The Ministry will collaborate and partner with our sister agencies of the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ministry of Economic Development that are primarily responsible for the overall project construction activities in order to deliver a completed quality product to the citizens of the south and overall the entire population of St. Lucia. In addition to the preceding, the Ministry of Health will also be primarily responsible for the communication and dissemination of information and the progress of this project so that the general public remains informed at all phases of the implementation. This will be achieved through the engagement of a communications officer who incidentally has joined our team this morning and who will focus on, will ensure that there's a focus attention and accurate dissemination of pertinent information. So today we are pleased to see and to participate in this recommencement process and we commit to the necessary actions that are required to ensure the success and the completion of St. Jude Hospital. Thank you. Right now we will have, who I believe is one of the most important people guiding this project to address us. He is the Chairman of the Project Management Committee, Mr. Edison Henry. As the one with responsibility for leading at the entity who will take the lead responsibility for the project management, we expect to utilize the best practice of interministerial management and that includes close collaboration and active participation of the Ministry of Infrastructure who will lead on technical supervision as well as the Ministry of Health who you heard earlier would be responsible for activating our oversight mechanism and that is a broad-based steering committee which is made up of both public sector and private sector individuals. I think it speaks of a model of, as the Prime Minister always articulates, a model of transparency, accountability and best practice. We have also engaged a contractor with a track record of top performance and we expect that he will deliver the quality that will cost them to be receiving from him. At the level of the PMU, we will ensure that the necessary checks and balances are put in place to ensure not just the delivery of the project but delivery of the project on time and on budget. I know it won't be an easy, easy situation to manage but I welcome the presence of our public relations officer especially as if this is a project which has been made with many circumstances, some will be under our control. However, I think it is a responsibility of the project team to keep the public informed of the progress of the project and the challenges as well as the solutions for overcoming them. So that I commit to as well in concert with our implementing partners. Ladies and gentlemen, I will pause now and I will say thank you for the trust and confidence in the Department of Economic Development. As it is, the Prime Minister has chosen to retain the project within the Department of Economic Development who will provide technical lead and we are happy to do so to provide the necessary continuity and leadership that this project solely needs. Thank you. Thank you Mr Henry and to re-emphasize a collaborative approach to this project, no one person or entity can do it alone so we have the Ministry of Infrastructure on board along with the Department of Economic Development and the Ministry of Health. So I think that this will really over well in terms of sharing ideas and practices for the delivery of St. Jude Hospital. So I would now like to invite the contractor from CIE representative Mr Joshi and I really haven't mastered his last name yet so I will not even attempt Joshi. Briefly about what we have started to do here we have started today in the phase one of the St. Jude Hospital rehabilitation project. Phase one includes the cleaning of the entire site including all the buildings it also includes the fumigation and the anti-termite treatment that needs to be carried out because of the time that has elapsed since the buildings were not used. So today we have started with the East Wing we have started with the surgical building as well as power laundry and maintenance building. We are cleaning up the floors and we are about 7 subcontractors currently working here there are 42 people in their crews that have started to work here today and this will continue for the next 4 months which will include the cleanup the fumigation and the anti-termite treatment that needs to be carried out so that will be the completion of the phase one then we will move into the phase 2 of the works. And thank you Joshi for that explanation because it's important to note that these buildings had been abandoned for the last 6 years so as you would imagine there is a lot of remedial works to be done to get it up to scratch before we complete it so we are very happy for those timelines and we really hope that we can move speedily through the first phase and onto the second phase and again to open the doors to serve the people of St Lucia of the South. I would now like to call on the Honourable Minister Senior Minister Honourable Stephen Sinking who is again collaborating with the Department of Economic Development for the St. Jude Rehabilitation Project. It is indeed a nostalgic opportunity this morning to be part of this exercise to commence what I believe and to ensure the Prime Minister will endorse to be the final leg in the redevelopment of St. Jude Hospital. It is nostalgic because at the time of the fire which destroyed the surgical block of this hospital I happened to be the Prime Minister. It is also nostalgic because I have served on two occasions as Minister responsible for health and St. Jude Hospital was always a pleasant place to visit by virtue of the nature of health services that it provided. St. Jude provided care to its people not only in the South but to the entire country that certainly reflected a difference in health care services. The care that you receive from the sorrowful mother or from Mercy Hospital who came in to replace the sisters of sorrowful mother or from our own nurses and doctors nationals who committed themselves to serving the people. We have gone through a lot here at St. Jude as Deputy Chairman indicated much wasted has taken place here and I believe on this occasion with the module that we have developed with the kind of interministerial collaboration between infrastructure economic development and Ministry of Health I am very confident that this project will be completed on time within budget and to the great satisfaction of all St. Jude. And having said this therefore I want to pledge to you Prime Minister the full cooperation not just of myself as Minister responsible for infrastructure but the support of the entire Ministry our commitment and our dedication to provide the service to the people who deserve it the people of the South and the people of St. Lucia in general who have waited for so long and who at this time must be given their Hospital St. Jude and therefore I believe we have a good team in place a contractor who has performed not only in St. Lucia but overseas who has a track record and I am confident that our St. Lucia team of contractors subcontractors etc will deliver this hospital to the people and thank you very much and I look forward to the progression on this project thank you Thank you Honourable Minister and it is always a pleasure to invite Prime Minister Honourable Philip J. Pierre to address us Thank you very much Minister of Ceremonies I would be lying if I say I am not happy I am happy and I am thankful basically thankful to my colleagues in the Cabinet because there was a lot of debate as to whether we are doing the right thing as to whether we will also from some of our closest people whether we are doing the right thing or whether we are leaving a state of the art building and going into another building but as I have said before we trusted the science and we allow independent people to do their assessment for us and I can assure you not one of my colleagues ever ever interfered in the assessment being done by that committee and it came to the conclusion that we were to return to the original sites and continue hope for the completion and I want to tell you also that these people worked for nothing we paid them not one cent we did not pay them one cent they put their time and their effort and they gave us a report and this is the genesis of what we are doing here this morning I want to tell you also the management of this project is going to be different no one or two men are going to be in charge professionals are going to be in charge and it's going to be a collaboration between the Ministry of Health the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ministry of Economic Development none of my ministers are engineers so we will not pretend we are going to be guided strictly by the professionals and you must also note something the continuity in that we thought we trusted the technocrats we thought that they would always they would never or they would not try to destabilize the government of the project and we trusted them and I hope that they trust that the cabinet puts in these technical officers that they maintain that trust because of all what you heard about St. June $100 that we spent on these buildings literally millions of dollars behind us is possibly $120 million that's behind us $120 million if not more and their debts their debts on this building behind there debts that possibly could be anything between 30 and $50 million on these buildings behind there plus their debts left over on these buildings also so in total we possibly may have spent between $250 million and $300 million when we are completed paying the debts on these two buildings as they are that is what the taxpayers of this country will have to go through and whereas I am happy it hurts me because $300 million later the people of St. Lucia still have not got a hospital but they are going to show them and the cabinet can assure them that in the shortest possible time the people of the south of this country will be not maybe will be receiving healthcare in these St. Jude buildings in these St. Jude buildings we will receive healthcare in these St. Jude buildings and I want to also thank especially the staff the medical staff generally but the staff the doctors and the nurses at St. Jude hospital that's a true label of love to work in the conditions that they worked under I want to I want to really thank them I want to thank them the staff of the St. Jude hospital and the board of directors for guiding this process but most of all the unfortunate people who got sick and had to endure the conditions at the stadium my heart bleeds for them because the conditions at least at that stadium will not easy and because most of the time because of selfishness we kept these people in that condition for 6 years and I had a walk in these buildings this morning and I was saying to that I went myself to see for myself I'm not an engineer I'm not a professional engineer but there is nothing that says that these buildings could not have been completed for years there is absolutely nothing that says it's a callous act for people to have left people in the conditions at the stadium just because you want to prove a point but we're not proving any point the only point to be proving is we are trying to improve the health care for the people of the south and giving them better conditions that's the only point so today I want to thank the cabinet for the patients that have been enjoying with me because sometimes it's very difficult to be in a situation where you get bombarded in all sides and one man is telling you let's go there, let's go here but the cabinet is still with us I want to thank the staff for the Ministry of Economic Development because they also want the pressure I put them on a lot of pressure too I admit I put them on a lot of pressure I had to because if I didn't put them on the pressure and for the Ministry of Infrastructure that has joined and the Ministry of Health and I also want to say a special mention of the Minister of Health the Honourable Moses Jabatis Moses Jabatis is committed and I'm sure where he is, Moses is smiling it's 11 o'clock in Taiwan Moses must be up trying to listen to what if somebody doesn't have a live show him an alive Moses is, I'm sure he's listening because I think of all the cabinet Ministers have a special interest in St. Jude but Moses has an interest in St. Jude because of his portfolio and because of the fact he and Labry and Viewford South always fight as to where St. Jude is and the member of Viewford South spoke to me this morning that he was not caught in engagement so he could not be here so really it's not time to celebrate us yet but I'm going to show you we're going to be celebrating here very soon this work will continue it's not going to stop it's going to continue until it comes to an end if there is no turning back and anybody who believes that we're going to turn back that is their business we are not turning back and we are going to continue this work to save the people from the conditions they are in the stadium so I want to thank everybody I want to tell you that it was long, somebody said we took too much time but it's always good to take time to plan and time to know where you're going I want to apologize to the people who suffered at the stadium I want to thank the staff and the people in the Ministry of Health I don't want to tell the contractor how confident in him great confidence in him because of his track record the contractor has just completed the hospital in Nomneka so we think that it is a solution talent that we are going to use I want to tell the contractor that he needs to do his best and the workers who are working on the site they said they are 42 already we hope that these numbers will increase to create some level of economic activity all in all, what you want to do in the final analysis to have a modern functional hospital for the people in the south I thank you very much