Smart new premises for CBH workers

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1. New CBH building on Church Street. (Photo by Latrishka Thomas)
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By Latrishka Thomas

Workers at the Central Board of Health (CBH) – who previously protested their atrocious working conditions – are set to move into “one of the nicest office complexes in Antigua and Barbuda”.

Those were the words of Minister of Health Molwyn Joseph to describe the revamped building in Church Street, St John’s.

Yesterday Joseph was handed the keys to the rehabilitated premises by Chief Architect in the Ministry of Works, Randall Pyle, during an official ceremony.

Joseph said “the CBH people deserve no less than what they are going to occupy”.

He also expressed his appreciation to Minister of Works Lennox Weston saying, “I have been in politics over 30 years and this is the most productive time of the public works I have ever seen.”

He said it was thanks to Weston’s stridency that the project was completed so fast.

The new two-storey building will be occupied by a few medical staff as well as general CBH workers.

It contains several offices equipped with new furniture, a kitchen and lunch area and a large secure room for the storage of vaccines.

In February, fed-up CBH workers staged a protest in front of the lower All Saints Road premises that once housed the department, citing poor working conditions at the building which is about 60 years old.

At yesterday’s ceremony, Minister Joseph said he empathised with the workers because “the issue of CBH has been a thorny issue for a very long time”. He said the decades-old structure had received few upgrades in its history.

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