Sabha receives $650k for health centre

People living along Saweni and nearby areas in Lautoka will no longer need to travel to Lautoka City soon for medical treatment.

The Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Fiji recently received $650,000 from businessman Rajendra Prasad to fund the building of a health centre at the University of Fiji’s Saweni, Lautoka Campus.

Special projects manager Kamlesh Arya received the cheque from Rajendra’s Foodtown Supermarket founder Rajendra Prasad during his 80th birthday celebration in Lautoka on Tuesday.

Mr. Arya said the project would take 18 months to complete.

“The university has a medical school which is called Umanand Prasad School of Medicine and Health Sciences. It is one of the first schools that we have. We have five schools. At one point, we had a situation where medical students were having difficulty at government hospitals. The Lautoka Hospital, which is now under PPP, also had FNU students there, so we had a struggle. So I began negotiating with Rajendra Prasad, and he said he would look into it. Our first donation he gave was for Gurukul to build a centenary wing, so that is done,” he said.

“The $650,000 is only for the structure, we will raise funds for equipment, operating resources, and things like that.”

He said that half the preparatory work had been completed.

“We are moving towards seeking qualified architects’ expressions of interest who are willing to do the design plan for us. We should start our work by July 15. We are indebted to the Rajendra Sahai Trust for such massive goodwill.

“We’re going to build it under a new arrangement, which will also be termite-controlled. So that’s going to be an elevated site so that they can have a better view. Every donor needs to have a public image. So it will give a very good profile to the Rajendra Sahai Trust because it’s an elevated site. It will be an A-grade health centre of the government, semi-hospital and our doctors will manage it from the School of Medicine, but we are working towards seeing a partnership with the Ministry of Health,” he said.

Hospital layout

“The general outpatient will be where you come for doctor’s consultation, get a prescription, and maybe a small pharmacy where they might give you over-the-counter medicine. Otherwise, you go to the pharmacy within the main building, there’ll be a separate setup, and we intend to also have a diabetes awareness conference room where we invite the public to come.”

Dialysis centre.

“We will have the dialysis centre running in the next 18 months or so. There may be a fee but that will be decided because dialysis is a very expensive arrangement, anything between $250-$300 for one dialysis. So the university, in consultation with the founder and the donor, will decide how much to charge but we are hopeful that we may be able to give free dialysis to the poorest. It will be a centre available within the community rather than running to the two main hospitals for dialysis and being in the queue all the time.”

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