Abandoned Hospital Complex in Panama to Cost $16 Million

Practically a new work will have to be done, as the works involve developing plans, building, equipping, financing and maintaining the health installation for three years. It was a structure about to be delivered, with expensive medical equipment inside, which will now have to be purchased again. The company has been given a deadline of a year and a half to complete the work, plus the three years of maintenance it will handle. After being paralyzed for over a decade, the company Administración y Supervisión de Obras Civiles, S.A. was finally hired directly to conclude this long-awaited project, at a cost of $7.5 million. There has been a wasted previous investment and a progressive structural deterioration that increases the final cost of intervention. The roof will have to be changed, the electrical system reviewed and adapted, air conditioning compressors installed, among other tasks. In other words, this health center started costing $8.5 million and today, after such abandonment, it will end with a cost of over $16 million. Changing the roof involves a current expense of $680,000. It will have to install lighting in the parking lots, mark the spaces and replace the tiles that are in poor condition. Fifteen years have passed since the Minsa Capsi in Santa Fe, in Darién, was announced for the population of the eastern part of the country. The contractor, who is still to be authorized to proceed, will have to carry out fumigation, cleaning and disinfection of walls and floors. The equipment for the Minsa Capsi will cost $2.5 million. At the same time, it will have to repair the perimeter fence and access gates and install a new wastewater treatment plant. Boyd Galindo said at the time that an audit of the project was being carried out and that its purpose was for the Public Ministry to investigate what happened. The Ministry of Health, in its technical report, recognized that the prolonged abandonment of this infrastructure has caused significant losses in the budgetary and financial sphere. The Minister of Health, Fernando Boyd Galindo, in a statement made in the month of August last year, described that when he entered the facility, the deterioration of the roof was such that there were leaks everywhere and the biomedical equipment was wet and with fungi. Santa Fe is a new district that is the gateway to Darién and has a population of 20,000 inhabitants. This has led to the need for a partial reconstruction instead of a simple rehabilitation, in addition to higher expenses for transferring patients to distant facilities and increased costs for emergency care not treated in a timely manner.