Health Minister Richard Renouf, speaking during yesterday’s States sitting, admitted there was currently no precise date set for the move.
Services such as outpatients, the pain management centre and child development therapy centre are due to be relocated from Overdale to allow work to begin on the new hospital which is planned for the site. In January, the government confirmed that services would start to be relocated later this year, with the building opening in January 2022.
Deputy Renouf said: ‘I can confirm that the timing of the relocation of services to the former Les Quennevais school site has been discussed at local community meetings. There is currently no precise date for the decant of health services from Overdale to the former school, as this aspect of the project is still being planned.
‘It is now looking likely that services will begin moving across in stages, commencing in spring 2022, with the facility being fully open by December 2022.’
The cost of the refit of the former school and relocation of services is estimated to be around £10 million.
Meanwhile, there are still more than 100 vacancies being advertised within Jersey’s health service, despite ongoing recruitment efforts, Deputy Renouf revealed.
He said that the government had placed job adverts for 21 medical staff and 37 nurses among the 107 jobs ‘actively out for recruitment at this moment’.
He was responding to a question from Deputy Kevin Pamplin, who asked what the government was doing to recruit and maintain numbers of healthcare professionals such as nurses, GPs and carers.
‘Many of those vacancies are not just left empty. They are fulfilled by locums at the present time,’ Deputy Renouf said.
He added that, although the government did not get directly involved with the recruitment of GPs, there was a ‘definite impetus’ to work in partnership with healthcare providers in the Island ‘to ensure that all Islanders’ needs are met’.
‘We are working and collaborating well with other professionals – including the GPs – and I am pleased to see that moving forward,’ he said.
Recruitment and retention of staff has been a long-running problem for the Health Department. In 2018 there were a reported 36 vacancies for registered nurses at the Hospital, while in September 2019, before the pandemic, it was revealed that almost 200 positions within the Hospital were unfilled.
