Children’s ward refurbished |25 November 2015

Improved comfort for young patients

Infants and children being admitted at the Seychelles Hospital are receiving medical treatment in better comfort now that their ward has been renovated.

The Minister for Health Mitcy Larue yesterday visited the recently renovated paediatric ward, known as children’s ward, of the Seychelles Hospital.

The minister was accompanied by her principal secretary Peggy Vidot, the chief executive of the Health Care Agency Dr Suresh Menon, his deputy Dr Danny Louange and other officials in charge of the ward.

The paediatric ward has recently been entirely re-done by the government of Turkey through the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency  (Tika), which is responsible for the organisation of the bulk of Turkey's official development assistance to developing countries.

New facilities on the ward include surgical and medical beds with a special room for burned patients as they need isolated specialised care; completely refurbished toilets and bathrooms; modern scales for weighing babies; fully air-conditioned ward; new baby cots and children’s beds and more specialised services on the ward like the Special Care Unit room.

The renovation of the children’s ward forms part of the Seychelles Hospital’s major modernisation works on its facilities which started some time back. Already the operating theatre has been modernised. It has now been followed by the children’s ward and the ministry will then move on to the male medical and female wards and Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Speaking to the press, the director for hospital services, Dr Loren Reginald, said as the children’s ward was old and facilities out of date, the government sought assistance from the government of Turkey to completely re-do the ward.

“The Seychelles government has not contributed a thing. The ward is very baby friendly, with beautiful colours and new facilities,” said Dr Reginald, adding some facilities are not in the country yet but will arrive in January. These include camp beds for mothers who stay with their children. Beds for parents did not exist in the old ward before therefore parents are very grateful for them.

Dr Reginald stressed on two important things which the Seychelles Hospital should focus on in its modernisation programme.

“What we are focusing on now is maintenance. Because before we did not maintain things regularly so when we have to repair them it cost a lot. So now we are putting emphasis on two important aspects: a continuous programme to modernise our hospital, section by section, and secondly maintaining the new facilities regularly,” he added.

Elaborating on the modernisation work on the ICU, Dr Reginald said there are two things that will be done on the unit. Apart from renovation works, the bed capacity will be increased to six.

While the children’s ward was being refurbished, the young patients occupied one of the maternity wards.