by Rod Hughes

For a long time, Osa residents on the southern Pacific peninsula have pleaded with Costa Rican health authorities for a new hospital to replace the antique they had. Now they do, the Tomas Casas Hospital in Ciudad Cores that opened Sunday.

“Now we don’t have to suffer in the rainy season when we had to evacuate (the old hospital),” 93-year-old Martina Espinoza told the daily paper La Nacion as she sat in her wheelchair during the inauguration. The new hospital is built on higher ground so it will not be likely to be flooded out like the old one.

Moreover, the new 50-bed facility doubles the capacity for patients and will be attended by a 361-member staff instead of the 206 of yore. It has three operating rooms of which one is apt for orthopedic surgery to serve traffic accident victims. The facility is the most state-of-the-art medical facility in the southern zone.