Health | Tam tours new health facilities, inaugurates new pharmacy

The Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam, visited several health facilities on Friday, including the upcoming Ilha Verde Health Care Center and the new hospital pharmacy of the Conde de São Januário Hospital Center (CHCSJ) where he presided on the new facility’s inauguration ceremony to celebrate the completion of expansion works, the Health Bureau (SSM) informed in a statement.

With a total area of ​​8,728 square meters, the new Ilha Verde Health Care Center will be the largest health care center of the region, and will open this summer to provide health services for an expected population of 96,000 residents.
The SSM also noted that services have already been scheduled for the opening of the center, and health care personnel have already been allocated.

Once open, this will be the third health care center located in the Northern area of Macau. The two other health care centers in Areia Preta and Fai Chi Kei will be also reorganized to provide better services to residents in the area, especially in the treatment of dementia and in the provision of services for children with special needs, physiotherapy, and others.
The new facilities of the Ilha Verde Health Care Centre first underwent expansion and renovation works between July and December last year to add more space to the patients’ waiting area, and add new service counters to reduce the waiting time of patients at the pharmacy.

During the visit to the facilities, the Secretary took note of the procedures for the collection, verification and delivery of medicines, and observed the operation of the new automatic dispensing machine opened last February. The new equipment was said to cut down on the waiting time for dispensing drugs by approximately one third, according to data from the SSM from March.
The new automatic dispensing machine has the capability to dispense 2,400 boxes of medicine per hour and has a storage capacity of 13,500 medicine boxes.
It can also automatically perform an inventory of the medicine stock and verify the expiration period of stored medicines, thus reducing waiting time and increasing the precision and quality of dispensing.