On the drawing board for more than three years, the proposed medical facility for the capital of the Marshall Islands has gone from a $20 million proposal to $45 million and now back to about $32 million not including equipment, which will add millions to the tab.
Although the Ministry of Health is promoting the plan, both United States government and officials in the Marshall Islands outside of the Ministry of Health question the need for such a costly facility when the majority of the health problems in the country are preventable.
At this point, a U.S. official said Friday, “nothing is sealed in concrete” and the plan is subject to review and changes.
The Marshall Islands has one of the highest rates of tuberculosis in the region, increasing health problems from water-borne illnesses, the highest teen pregnancy level in the Pacific close to 20 percent of all births are attributed to teenagers annually, and difficulty in eradicating leprosy.
“The government, in particular the Ministry of Health, is studying the design concept with the recent modifications made,” said the government’s Chief Secretary Casten Nemra. “This significant project is likely to take three-to-five years of implementation.”
With the United States expected to provide most of the funding, the Interior Department which oversees U.S. grant support to its former territory is heavily involved in the funding decision.
The proposal calls for a nearly 50 percent increase in the current 87-beds now at the hospital. But, said one U.S. official, “the ministry reported that it has a 60 percent occupancy rate now. Why do they need 120 beds?”
The new facility is to complement a $9 million “annex” that the Japan government funded three years ago, which provides outpatient and public health services. But the Japan government balked at the Marshall Islands’ initial request for a $20 million hospital in the early 2000s over concerns that this western Pacific country would not be able to maintain a larger facility. The project was cut to
