The 540-bed, 12-storey Central Block at the Port of Spain General Hospital was supposed to be operationalised by March 2026. Finance Minister Tancoo said so in the budget. March 2026 is over. The building is not open. The new target is June 30 - the fourth deadline in as many years for a project approved in 2017 at $1.3 billion, of which $949.4 million had been spent by March 2025.
The old Central Block was condemned by the Pan American Health Organisation and structural engineers, particularly after the 6.9-magnitude earthquake that struck Trinidad in 2018. The replacement was supposed to modernise the country's flagship acute care facility with ten operating theatres, oncology and chemotherapy suites, adult and paediatric intensive care units, radiology, a catheterisation lab, and capacity that the overcrowded Accident and Emergency department desperately needs. Instead, it has become a case study in how infrastructure projects in Trinidad and Tobago are announced, delayed, re-announced, and delayed again.
A Project That Lost Its Contractor
Cabinet approved the Central Block in June 2017. Construction began in May 2019 after the contract was awarded to Shanghai Construction Group for $1.1 billion. Then the pandemic hit. SCG terminated the contract in late 2021, citing surging costs - shipping from China had risen from US$4,000 to US$19,000 per container. The collapse cost the State an additional $110 million and caused a two-year delay.
UDeCOTT, the state project management company overseeing the build, re-tendered and awarded 13 contracts to five companies. China Railway Construction Caribbean received the lion's share - four contracts totalling $837.7 million, covering modified design-build services ($615.3 million), medical equipment ($129.3 million), ICT equipment ($79.7 million), and a medical library refurbishment ($13.2 million). Universal Structures Ltd handled structural steel and concrete at $106.4 million. Western Scientific Company supplied inpatient and laboratory equipment across three contracts totalling $99.5 million. AA Laquis held four contracts for surgical equipment at $63.6 million. Eye See You Ophthalmic supplied eye surgery equipment at $6.6 million. Approximately $300 million of the total was spent on medical equipment alone.
By April 2023, then-UDeCOTT chairman Noel Garcia projected completion by Q3 2024 and commissioning by early 2025. That deadline passed. The next target was July 2025. That passed too. Then March 2026. Now June.
The Ceremony Before the Election
On March 10, 2025 - three days before the general election - the PNM government held a "Practical Completion of Construction Ceremony." Then-Prime Minister Keith Rowley unveiled a commemorative plaque on a building that was, by the incoming government's account, a shell. The PNM's social media declared Phase 3 complete and said the hospital would open to the public from July 2025.
The ceremony was an election stunt. Only one floor was shown to the viewing public. A video circulated showing unfinished interiors and exposed walls behind the areas where cameras were pointed. Minister of Works Jearlean John, who took office weeks later, described what she inherited as a "base building." Health Minister Dr. Lackram Bodoe was blunter about the gap between the plaque and reality. T&T National Nursing Association president Idi Stuart called it "politics" at the eleventh hour of the general election. Rowley put his name on a plaque for a hospital that could not admit a patient. Consultant physician Dr. Joel Teelucksingh wrote a satirical column titled "The Emperor's New Hospital" in the Trinidad Guardian. He was subsequently placed on administrative leave by the South West Regional Health Authority, though then-Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh ordered his reinstatement and a later investigation cleared him of wrongdoing.
The 90% That Was Not 90%
In August 2025, a UDeCOTT status report put the project at 90% completion. During a ministerial tour on September 19, Minister John publicly disputed the figure: "I'm being told it's 90% complete but I've done these things over the course of my career. I wouldn't say it's 90% complete. I wish it was." She called on UDeCOTT to correct the information. Health Minister Bodoe agreed, saying "there's still a long way to go."
When the project management agency and the ministers responsible for the building are publicly contradicting each other on something as basic as how finished a building is, the public has no independent basis for trusting either figure.
Four Problems, One Deadline
UDeCOTT's March 12, 2026 statement - the one confirming the deadline would be missed - listed builders' works at 95.82% and detailed four categories of problems.
First, pipeline pressurisation. Fire sprinkler testing between August and October 2025, and potable water and wastewater testing from July to December 2025, revealed leaks requiring repairs, rework, and replacement of damaged drywall.
Second, HVAC system delays. Duct insulation shipments from China were delayed from June to September 2025. Additional flushing requirements for chilled water lines extended commissioning further. Humidity control levels were not achieved until January 15, 2026.
Third, the bus duct flooding. On January 26, 2026, a broken pipeline inside the building allowed water to enter the electrical bus duct system, causing a section of the power distribution network to fail and resulting in a three-day power interruption. The replacement component was ordered and is expected in April 2026.
Fourth, medical gas certification. International standards require ASSE 6030-certified third-party verifiers under NFPA 99 Code. Two previously approved verifiers declined to travel to Trinidad and Tobago during the State of Emergency, citing US Embassy travel restrictions. A new verifier arrived on March 1 and inspection is underway.
UDeCOTT also cited delayed payments, workmanship issues requiring corrective work, and global supply chain challenges as systemic factors. The pharmacy and operating theatre suites remain under construction. Medical equipment installation, originally scheduled for October 2025, did not begin until January 2026.
The Staffing Gap
The Central Block will add 540 beds to the public health system. Beds require nurses. Trinidad and Tobago has a documented shortage of over 1,600 nurses nationally. The Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex experienced a de facto nursing shutdown when its Accident and Emergency department had 30 patients and no nursing staff. Nurses across the public system remain on 2013 salary levels. The North Central Regional Health Authority cut monthly overtime from 60 to 40 hours and reduced the hourly rate from $75 to $60, triggering mass refusal of extra-duty shifts.
Idi Stuart has noted that even if the Central Block opens, it will likely operate at limited capacity initially. He has also raised a broader point: Trinidad and Tobago's focus on building hospitals through UDeCOTT projects neglects primary healthcare - a concern the World Health Organisation has flagged. Former Health Minister Dr. Fuad Khan argued that retrofitting the old Central Block and investing in diagnostic centres would have been more cost-effective, warning that the ongoing operating and maintenance costs for the new facility will be enormous.
Staff training has begun. Interim measures at the St. James Medical Complex - including an internal medicine ward, filter clinics, enhanced laboratory and imaging access, and additional A&E staffing - have been put in place to relieve some of the pressure. But these are temporary fixes for a permanent problem.
What June Means
If the Central Block opens in June, it will be a genuine achievement - a modern hospital facility in a system that desperately needs one. But it will open into a system where the access route between the existing A&E department and the new block was still being redesigned as recently as early 2026, where the pharmacy and operating theatres may not be fully commissioned, and where the workforce to staff 540 beds does not yet exist in sufficient numbers.
The people of Port of Spain have been waiting since 2017. Four deadlines have passed. $949 million has been spent with no updated total cost figure published. The building is almost ready. The system it will operate within is not. That gap is the real delay.
Sources
- Trinidad Express: "Central Block gets new reopening date" (March 12, 2026)
- Trinidad Express: "Patients get ease-up" (March 13, 2026)
- Trinidad Guardian: "$950M spent so far on Central Block" (June 2025)
- Trinidad Guardian: "The Emperor's New Hospital" - Dr. Joel Teelucksingh column (March 21, 2025)
- TTT News: "New POSGH Central Block now set for March 2026 completion" (September 19, 2025)
- Newsday: "Deyalsingh: No cost overruns at hospital central block" (October 14, 2023)
- Newsday: "UDeCOTT head: PoSGH Central Block completion by early 2025" (April 5, 2023)
- TV6: "Redesigning of Central Block pathway" (2026)
- AZP News: "More work to complete Central Block" (2026)
- UDeCOTT: Port of Spain General Hospital project page and official statement (March 12, 2026)
- UDeCOTT: August 18, 2025 ministerial tour documentation
- PNM: "Practical Completion of Construction Ceremony" media (March 10, 2025)
- Ministry of Health: Dr. Bodoe's UNC media briefing (March 16, 2026)