Most of the work on the Islands Healthcare Complex has been concluded and it will start operating in phases from the end of 2023, according to multiple media reports.
The disclosure was made on 25 March by Elsie Ao Ieong, the social affairs and culture secretary, as she officiated at the opening of a new campus of the Kiang Wu Nursing College, which will be part of the medical facility at Cotai.
An eagerly awaited cancer treatment centre will be in the first phase of the complex’s opening. Cancer accounted for 970 of the 3,004 deaths recorded in Macao in 2022, according to the DSEC, but some patients still need to be sent for treatment outside the territory.
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When fully operational, the Islands Healthcare Complex will feature some 1,100 beds, boosting the number of available beds in Macao by nearly 50 percent. Several of its health personnel are currently being trained at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Ao Ieong said.
Emergency services, presently based at the University Hospital of the Macau University of Science and Technology, will reportedly be transferred to the Cotai complex.
Meanwhile, Ao Ieong said that regulations mandating the wearing of face masks on public transport and at certain facilities, such as medical facilities and elderly care homes, could be eased if Macao passes through an expected pre-summer surge of Covid-19 cases in a stable manner.
