The National Chest Hospital (NCH) has undergone renovation work to its infrastructure and is fully operational.

The hospital's infrastructure had been in question in recent times. However, Lyttleton Shirley, chairman of the South East Regional Health Authority, said, in a release on Monday, that all was well.

Acceptable standard

"The National Chest Hospital is alive and kicking and performing at an acceptable standard. We have had some shortfalls in terms of infrastructure and policy guidelines, which we have addressed and certainly, we have a cadre of health-care providers and administrators at the institution that is highly competent and motivated to meet the needs of our patients," he said.

According to Shirley, over the years, strategic innovative changes at the hospital, since it was first established as an institution to treat patients with tuberculosis in 1940, has transformed it into a facility dedicated to the comprehensive management of conditions affecting the chest.

The hospital, which has been mired in controversy in recent times, sees over 3,000 inpatients annually and has seen a 62 per cent increase in surgeries and 50 per cent increase in the overall patient load in the casualty department since the abolition of public-health user fees last April.

NCH offers state-of-the-art medical procedures such as fibre-optic and rigid bronchoscopies, endobronchial and open lung biopsies, pleural biopsies, thoracoscopy and open resection of lung lesions.