As the Colonial War Memorial Hospital marks its centennial, Minister for Health and Medical Services, Dr. Atonio Lalabalavu, has announced a detailed assessment of the hospital’s infrastructure.

With just nine days remaining until the historic milestone, the focus is on evaluating the condition of the hospital’s 14 buildings, which span varying ages and are in need of significant infrastructural improvements.

He says that over the past decade, several infrastructure assessments have been conducted, revealing the need for substantial repairs and renovations.

An initial scoping mission was completed in October this year, and it has identified 8 out of 14 buildings as eligible for structural integrity and retrofitting assessments. Further prioritization of the buildings is underway by the Ministry. A full, detailed assessment of the project is anticipated to commence in January 2024.

Doctor Lalabalavu says the assessment aims to identify priority areas for infrastructural improvement.

The assessment report will assist the Ministry to prioritize the most urgent retrofits at CWM Hospital for consideration in our next annual budget proposal while feeding into the longer-term master planning for health service delivery in Fiji.

Doctor Lalabalavu says the hospital replaced the Colonial Hospital, which was first built in Levuka and relocated to Walu Bay in Suva in 1894.

When it initially opened in 1923, it had 108 beds and 27 staff members, of whom 17 were European doctors and nurses and 10 were local nurses.

Today, the hospital has more than 500 inpatient beds and a workforce of more than 2000 workers, and the scope of health provided by the hospital has expanded many fold.