As the Queen Elizabeth Hospital passes its own milestone of 57 years as the national general hospital, its exterior has been spruced up to mark the island’s twin celebration of independence and republic status, QEH announced Friday.
The hospital is set to unveil its makeover on Sunday. QEH Director of Engineering Services Paula Agbowu said it “has been approximately 20 years since the hospital has been painted”.
The QEH, which has been predominantly a pale blue building with monochrome accents ever since it opened on November 14 1964, will sport a new colour scheme of a “natural cream colour, with accents of grey, aquamarine, blue and yellow”, according to Executive Chairman Juliette Bynoe-Sutherland.
She said: “The colours were chosen by an architect to reflect our vision for a modern hospital that is not only vibrant and welcoming in our service delivery, but also warm, measured and professional in our attitude and disposition.”
She said the hospital’s walls and surroundings did not reflect the hard work inside to preserve the lives of patients.
“It is our [the staff at QEH] contribution to the ongoing celebrations, and for us, we wish our exterior to reflect the excellence that we aspire to, and often achieve, in the interior,” she said.
The makeover is a joint project of the hospital’s engineering, administration and housekeeping staff with outside contractors and the National Conservation Commission.
The work involved internal and external painting, landscaping, a general cleanup of the hospital and its surrounding areas, as well as power-washing of walls and sidewalks, and the remarking of roadways.
The hospital chief declared that as Barbados transitions from a realm to a republic on November 30th, the exterior of the building on Martindales Road would be one of the first visible changes to symbolize “this momentous occasion”.
She said she hoped the beautification job would “re-instil a sense of pride among staff, and that our efforts at improving the patient experience will also be more apparent.”
While noting that the hospital represented “an iconic structure and service within the context of Barbados.”
The hospital was opened by Queen Elizabeth’s husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh on a flying visit here in 1964 in which he unveiled a mahogany plaque in the hospital’s public foyer. The plaque was made from timber taken from the building the QEH replaced, the old General Hospital on Jemmotts Lane, which was later home to the ministries of education and health and various allied agencies before it was abandoned. It was gutted by fire in April 2018.
Amid suggestions the QEH should be renamed, Bynoe-Sutherland stated that there were no plans to change the hospital’s name at present, as there was a need to be “measured in the pace at which we bring change”.
