Government is continuing to invest in the hospital despite the looming deadline to replace the ageing facility.

But Health Minister Nelson Bascome told The Royal Gazette that Government was still trying to hit the 2013 deadline, by which time experts had said King Edward VII Memorial Hospital would be beyond its lifespan.

He said: "We are still working towards trying to get it done in that timeframe."

Under the original plan, work had been supposed to start in 2008 on a job originally priced at $500 million. But no money was put aside for the project in this Budget.

However a time line has been set for the Urgent Care Centres, at either end of the island with Senator Thaao Dill telling the Upper House in the Budget debate on health yesterday that the eastern facility would be open by the end of March next year while the western facility, at Port Royal fire station, would be open by the following fiscal year.

He said the total cost would be $10 million in total to both build and furnish the urgent care centres while the pair would be managed and staffed by Bermuda Hospitals Board.

On KEMH, Sen. Dill said: "Much has been made about the lifespan of the hospital.

"The estate master plan gave an estimate date when the hospitals would reach the end of their useful life.

"However even last year we made it clear that there is no one date the hospital is going to implode. It is however going to require increasing investment and maintenance as we approach and pass that date."

He said phase two of the Johns Hopkins review into the project to replace the hospital on the current site is underway but could take two and a half to three years.

"The reason it is so long is that every detail needs to be correct before breaking ground. Making changes during construction will be extremely costly and could cause major delays."

However he promised the community would be kept involved and informed during the process.

And he said a lot of progress had been made at the current site with a renovated room in Perry ward adding four new beds while 16 additional beds and a transition lounge will open in March this year in the continuing care unit for seniors who require long term care.

A move to open plan offices, starting on the fifth floor, will release space on the ground floor to expand the diabetes and asthma centres.

Procedures and equipment have also been improved, said Sen. Dill.

A new eight-slice CT scanner will allow faster tests, which is vital for those with internal injuries including brain damage.

And the machine will then be upgraded to a 64-slice scanner while will increase speeds further and cut the need for some patients to go overseas for tests such as cardiac CT scanning.

Changes in shifts and the hiring of extra staff has also increased the number of patients being treated said Sen. Dill while more nurses are spending more time with patients.

Improvements in the Emergency Department, which gets more than 33,000 visits per year, include refurbishments to the waiting room and emergency entrance which will be done by the end of this fiscal year.

The hospital is working on speeding up transfers from emergency into wards without needing an overflow bed.

Sen Dill said: "The success of this programme has meant that in the last quarter, there were only four patient days in the overflow beds with almost no overnight stays, compared to 120 patient days in the same quarter of the previous year."

In the coming year electronic boards will be set up to cut down on waiting.

This month a new MRSA test will be introduced, slashing the waiting times for results from two days to a few hours and reducing the quarantine time for those who have been tested.

Currently the BHB tests all patients who are in the hospital for more than two weeks, said Sen. Dill, who added that rates of hospital-acquired MRSA infection are a fraction of those typical overseas.

A demo physician portal, which will allow doctors to receive patient tests electronically, will go live this month and should speed up service.

The portal will also be operated as a forum for discussion groups and airing policy information.

In October a sixth operating room was opened with the aim of reducing waiting times and allowing other suites to be temporarily shut for maintenance without impacting work.

And the laundry modernisation programme is nearly complete which will cut costs and improve efficiency.

A concierge service for those having to travel overseas will be established to help patients through the process of seeking specialist treatment and to ensure smooth transition, said Sen. Dill.

There have also been improvements at the Mid Atlantic Wellness Institute with better security, more surveillance and the upgrade of the panic alarm system.

In May 2007 a new child and adolescent services facility for children having acute mental health episodes, was set up, eliminating the need to put them with children at King Edward or with adults, said Sen. Dill.

Opposition Senate leader Michael Dunkley noted how hospital costs had increased by $54 million in ten years to $113.2 million. Of that KEMH gets $78.7 million and MAWI gets $34.5 million.

He said he was worried about what was happening with the rebuilding of KEMH.

Government had spend $1.5 million on the original estate plan for the rebuild and was now spending more on Johns Hopkins review after backtracking on the plan to build on the Botanical Gardens.