Victoria Hospital has officially transitioned to the Owen King EU Hospital.

Minister for Health, Hon. Mary Isaac, said it the accomplishment is cathartic.

“I went to the Victoria Hospital this morning and I saw the ambulances going and coming, picking up patients. It was exciting. It feels liberating that now we are out of Victoria Hospital and in the new Owen King hospital.

An energetic and highly motivated staff were busily implementing the action plan.

Executive Director Nancy Francis, explained: “There are different teams—the transport team, the command team, and the teams who are actually moving the patients. We are motivated and ready to go.”

With the suspension of elective surgeries and outpatient clinics, only 45 patients needed to be transferred to OKH. The move was successfully coordinated via a Command and Sequencing Centre manned at the Victoria Hospital, with a sub-command post at the Owen King hospital.

“At the OKH Command Centre we are responsible for ensuring that the patients are received safely and triaged to their appropriate wards and beds, said Transitioning Director Dr. Lisa Charles. “So once the patient has left Victoria Hospital, we get a phone call informing that the patient has left, and we then inform the wards and the command post at OKH when the patient arrives.”

Pivotal in the strategy was the order of patients to be moved. The sequencing centre was managed by Nursing Director Ruth Regis-Adesanya. She said the move was guided by the international criteria for patient moves.

“We had to assess all the patients to be moved and determine how to sequence them. The key was to ensure that the hospitals, whether VH or OKH, were not overwhelmed. So we only sent out from one unit, one patient at a time, and received at any unit one patient at a time,” she explained. “It’s been going very well; exactly according to plan, so all of the years of planning and training have paid off.”

The Owen King EU Hospital has now experienced many firsts, from the first patients in the ICU, to the first surgery, and now the first delivery.

Proud mother, Daria Peter, gave birth to baby boy, Darian Owen Peter.

As a mark of respect, nurses lined the hallway at OKH to pay respects to Sister Ruth Regis-Adesanya for her remarkable leadership in planning and executing the successful transition.