THE Ministry of Health is silent on whether a multi-million dollar cleaning contract for the CWM Hospital has been re-awarded to a previous local contractor, or whether a new business has been engaged to provide these services.
In 2023 the ministry had confirmed that a company received $2.5million annually to clean up CWM Hospital.
Then permanent secretary Dr James Fong had earlier stated the company was picked after a tender process and all necessary steps were followed. He had told this newspaper that there was a need for a systems review, especially in terms of how outsourced work such as cleaning contracts were monitored and who carried out the monitoring.
Concerns raised then remain as members of the public using the CWM facilities say sanitation facilities remain in a pitiful state.
Some members of the public have also highlighted that cleaning services were not up to par with what was expected, considering the sum paid for the cleaning services.
With the ongoing complaints and publicly expressed concerns about the state of the country’s medical facilities, The Fiji Times emailed the Ministry of Health’s media team on March 27 seeking an update on the contract, as well as information on whether Dr Fong’s earlier call for a systems review of outsourced work had been acted on.
Questions were also sent to the CWM Hospital’s board of visitors chairperson Dr Esther Williams, who referred this newspaper to CWM Hospital’s medical superintendent Dr Luke Nasedra.
The medical superintendent then referred this newspaper back to the ministry’s media team. An acknowledgement was received on April 2 stating the team would revert with a response.
Following this, another follow up was made to the media team on April 8. Calls were made to the media team on April 16, to no avail.
On April 17, a team from this newspaper visited the Ministry of Health headquarters in Suva to request for an update in person. The media team acknowledged the requests and stated a response would be sent.
However, as of yesterday the ministry has not responded to any of our queries.
