Construction Begins On Last Phase Of Liberia
Hospital
(InfoWebPress) – The Costa Rican Social
Security System (CCSS) has begun
construction on the last phase of Liberia’s
Enrique Baltodano Briceño Hospital, for an
investment of $8.9 million. The project will
be completed in 70 weeks.
According to information provided by Dr.
Seidy Judith Herrera Rodriguez, director of
the hospital, this project is of great
importance because Enrique Baltodano is the
main hospital in the entire province.
Construction will include Zones 9, 10 and 11
of the hospital, where departments such as
Procurement and Nutrition, General Services,
Pathological Anatomy and Maintenance will be
located. According to hospital officials,
this new phase will consist of 4,232 square
meters of construction and will be located
on the south side of the hospital complex.
According to Dr. Herrera, the Liberia
hospital has grown considerably in the past
few years in infrastructure, equipment and
human resources. Since 2006 alone, some 126
new positions have been created at the
health center.
This growth, according to the hospital’s
director, allows this facility to satisfy
the most important health needs of
Guanacastecans, to the point that travel to
hospitals in the San Jose area by residents
of the province has been significantly
reduced.
Enrique Baltodano currently offers almost
all of the specialties required by a
regional hospital, in addition to a modern
physical therapy service and an intensive
care unit. In the past few days, the
hospital also boosted its services by
acquiring a cardiologist and an expert in
orthopedics.
The Liberia hospital has 204 beds and
provides medical attention to 41,032 people
in the Liberia area and more than 300,000
more from other Guanacaste cantons and even
from the northern Alajuela canton of Upala.
According to Dr. Luis Fernando Ortega,
director of medical services for the
Chorotega (Guanacaste) region, in the first
quarter of 2009, the hospital provided
vaccination services, physical exams, weight
and height checks, hearing tests,
preventative dentistry and health education
to 63 percent of the region’s first, third
and sixth graders.
Ortega added that in the first six months of
this year, hospital and health personnel
managed to vaccinate 95 percent of the
population in the Liberia region.
Ortega said was one of the goals of the
regional office was boost services provided
to adolescents, reason for which 27,000
consultations were conducted, covering
issues such as depression, acute respiratory
infections and anxiety — some of the common
ailments affecting this population.
The official added that an average 90
percent of the province’s population is seen
and rehabbed in Guanacaste hospitals,
reducing the need to send these patients to
larger and more comprehensive health centers
in San Jose.
The Chorotega health region has one regional
hospital, two periphery hospitals, 23 health
areas, and 97 basic healthcare attention
units (known as EBAIS). The most common
ailments affecting Guanacastecans are upper
respiratory infections, high blood pressure
and diabetes. |
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