Government Ministers, officials, health personnel and invited guests gathered on Wednesday 19th July, 2023 under a tent on the grounds of the Princess Alexandra Hospital, for the dedication of the innovative, splendid new Dialysis facility.
Senior Health Educator, Mrs. Jennifer Gumbs, chaired the ceremony.
Pastor Rondy Isles-Carty quoted a promise verse from the Book of Jeremiah Chapter 33 and Verse 6, where it is written: “Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it. I will heal my people and help them enjoy abundant peace and security.”
The Pastor prayed God’s blessings to be always upon the facility, the machines, its healthcare givers, its nurses, and medical attendants. Further, he prayed for the healing and wellbeing of all the patients that would walk through its doors for periodic treatment from time to time.
Following the playing of the National Anthem and the National Song, the Acting CEO of the Health Authority, Mr. Malcolm Webster presented an in-depth analysis of the essential need for a well-equipped unit of this kind, while describing the development of the facility since dialysis procedures in the old unit had begun since 2001.
Mr. Webster reminded the gathering that kidney dialysis is the process of removing excess water, solutes and toxins from the blood for persons whose kidneys can no longer perform these functions naturally or independently.
“This is referred to as renal replacement therapy,” he said. “This facility which we will be dedicating today is what it takes to replicate the function and work of the kidneys. In layman’s terms dialysis is simply the cleaning of the blood, and by extension, the cleaning of the body.”
In giving a brief history of the local dialysis operations, the Acting CEO said: “Hurricane Irma taught us some useful lessons. I refer to Hurricane Irma because our old Dialysis Unit was a prefabricated container which was sitting on a concrete pad. It had a floor that was falling in and it had malfunctioning air-conditioning. It was a place where patients would have to come and sit to be treated in rather uncomfortable [conditions] for four hours, three times a week.”
“When we were preparing for the coming of Hurricane Irma, the question I got asked the most was: ‘Will the roof endure the storm?’ I was not so much concerned about the roof as much as I was concerned about the dialysis trailer itself,” he said.
“So, in preparing for the storm, we pulled absolutely everything out of the trailer – all of the equipment. We housed them in the operating theater, expecting that one thing that would not be around after the hurricane would be the trailer,” Mr. Webster said. “And so, after the ordeal that was Irma had passed, I came out to see what was left of the dialysis trailer. It was tossed away from its base and only a few pieces of felt were missing from the roof. It could still be used, so we did what was required to restore it, and so we had been operating under some unfavourable conditions in the old unit for as long as it took for us to reach to this stage today.”
He said that the conditions under which staff carried out their work in the old, restored trailer, were quite austere. He said that calls would come in from the neighbouring islands inquiring if patients could be accommodated in the unit as they used to be. But he admitted that he was too embarrassed to have any patients coming for treatment from overseas, such was the poor condition of the old facility. “But those days or over,” he gratefully said.
“Initially, we did not have ready funds on hand to construct a new facility,” he said, “but during COVID-19 while we were constructing an Isolation Unit, we thought that it would be appropriate to tag the two facilities together. So, we applied for funding for this new unit.”
“It would be remiss of me,” he reflected, “not to thank the former CEO, Mrs. Maeza Demis-Adams, as well as the former Governor, Her Excellency Ms. Dileeni Daniel-Selvaratnam, for finding the funding and making a way for us to have this new unit today.”
He also thanked the Contractor, Mr. Gareth Orchid, the construction team who worked diligently on the project, the Project Manager, Mr. Conlloyd Gumbs, the Dialysis Manager, Nurse Christine Dupuis, and, in particular, Mr. Cris Davenport who actually installed the dialysis machines.
Others making brief remarks at the ceremony included Dialysis Manager, Ms. Christine Dupuis, Chairman of the Board of Health Authority of Anguilla Acting, Dr. Clyde Bryan, and Mr. Paul Candler, Acting Governor.
Mr. Candler noted that he was indeed proud to know that the funding for the dialysis project was furnished by the UK. He said that when he visited Anguilla in February, he took a tour of the project with Her Excellency Ms. Dileeni Daniel-Selvaratnam, and he was impressed with the work as it was progressing.
“I am really proud, and the UK is really proud of this US$1.5 million state-of-the-art facility for Anguilla. Financing for this project was sourced from UK funds that are used to support the Overseas Territories,” he said. “This is a facility that is well suited to accommodate the needs [of] Anguillian kidney patients, as well as those folks from overseas who would come to Anguilla for the dialysis procedure.”
The Honorable Minister of Health, Premier Ellis L. Webster, said, “Certainly, this has been a partnership between the United Kingdom and Anguilla. And I hope to see this partnership continue…. We have had assurances of support from His Majesty, King Charles himself, as well as from the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, and the Director of Overseas Territories, who has taken up duties here with us.”
The Vote of Thanks was delivered by Senior Health Educator, and Ceremony Chair Mrs. Jennifer Gumbs, followed by the ceremonial Cutting of the Ribbon.
