The Tribune

By PAVEL BAILEY

Tribune Staff Reporter

pbailey@tribunemedia.net

“DOCTORS Hospital West is back,” said hospital president and CEO Dr Charles W Diggiss, Jr, yesterday at the reopening of the Blake Road facility.

Members of the press were taken on a tour of the facility yesterday which will focus on urgent and in-patient care for residents of western New Providence.

Dr Diggiss, Jr, led a tour of the refurbished facility with senior vice president Bridgette Sherman.

This comes after Doctors Hospital west was commandeered by the government in 2020 to act as a critical care centre for ventilated COVID patients during the pandemic and was in use until earlier this year.

Dr Diggiss explained the decision to transform Doctors Hospital West into a primarily urgent care and inpatient facility was pushed for by residents of western New Providence.

“Doctors Hospital West is back and the reason we have repurposed Doctors Hospital West for the services you are about to tour, especially with urgent care and inpatient care, is because of the request of the communities in western New Providence,” Dr Diggiss said. “We have established some very key relationships. Baha Mar has been a very notable partner of ours. Residential communities were probably the decision maker when it comes to us reopening in the form that you see. And those communities include Lyford Cay, Albany and more recently inquiries from Old Fort Bay.”

“What we are going to offer here is the ability to have your emergency and urgent care issues managed properly in coordination with our ground ambulance services. And we are so clear that this is going to be a great benefit to the communities, especially in western New Providence.

“Our mission transcends the treatment of illness, it’s about elevating the overall health and well-being of our nation. The reopening of Doctors Hospital West for urgent care embodies our unwavering commitment to this cause, specifically addressing the urgent needs of patients who do not seek emergency room care, but cannot wait for a traditional doctor’s appointment.”

The tour showcased the eight inpatient suites as well as its urgent care facilities. In addition to offering specialist care in the fields of dermatology, sports medicine, paediatrics and psychiatry, the facility will also feature diagnostic tools and a hyperbaric chamber.

This hyperbaric chamber will be available 24/7 especially for emergency cases in the dive community.

Last year, 16-year-old Randall Sawyer, of Abaco, died of complications from decompression sickness or the bends. His family strongly believes he would have survived if he had access to a hyperbaric chamber. At the time, the decompression chamber in New Providence was defunct.

Doctors Hospital West will be open from 8am to 11pm on weekdays and from 8am to 4pm on weekends and holidays.