$500k extension

THE Punjas Medical Health Centre in Lautoka will undergo a $500,000 building extension in order to accommodate more medical services.

At the groundbreaking ceremony of the project yesterday, Health Ministry permanent secretary Dr James Fong said the expansion of the health centre would capture the scope of activities required to complement the work that was happening in the public-private partnership (PPP) between Aspen Medical and the Fijian Government for the Lautoka and Ba hospitals.

“This initiative represents exactly the kind of remedy that we need to ensure better health facilities is available for Fijians,” he said.

“The fact that the senior directors of Punjas have expanded its focus of this initiative into having laboratories speaks volume to the wisdom with which this planning has been going around.

“Including maternal and child healthcare also speaks volume of the expanded role of this initiative in supporting primary healthcare.”

The chief marketing officer of Punjas, Gopal Jadhav, said in order to treat the increasing number of patients at the health centre, Punjas Charitable Trust decided to expand the physical structure to allow more medical services to be conducted.

“The new extension work is anticipated to be completed by early 2023 in about four months time and would include X-ray facilities, SOPD and blood testing laboratories.

“The extension of the current building is very timely as we believe it is expected to ease the load from the Lautoka Hospital,” said Mr Jadhav.