City council preparing to open rehabilitated Albouystown health centre

The rehabilitation of the Albouystown Health Centre has been completed and the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) is preparing for its reopening next Monday.

At a statutory council meeting on Monday, Town Clerk Royston King told councillors that he was informed by the City Engineer Colvern Venture that the project was completed.

Upon the reopening of the clinic, the council would be introducing services for persons suffering from chronic non-communicable diseases, voluntary counselling and testing for HIV, and a pharmacy at the centre.

The centre will also operate five days a week, as opposed to its previous three-days-a-week schedule.

Rehabilitation of the building, located at James and Bel Air streets, started in March, 2016, but it was halted on numerous occasions due to the unavailability of money. The work was pegged at $3 million and had been expected to be completed in May, 2016. To date, Stabroek News was told, more than $3 million was spent on the rehabilitation of structure.

In January, during a statutory meeting, Councillor Malcolm Ferreira had stated that the building was being used for unintended purposes and called on the M&CC to quickly complete the repairs.