St. George's, January 15, 2009, (GIS) - Health Minister Karl Hood is delighted that a long overdue health facility for the parish of St. John is about to get started. The announcement of the pending start of the state-of-the-art facility was first made by Junior Finance Minister Michael Church, the parliamentary representative for St. John. It was further discussed at a public consultation on January 13 at the Anglican Pastoral Centre in Gouyave, which was attended by Mr. Hood, Minister of State for Health Senator Ann Peters, and other officials of the Ministry of Health. Mr. Hood told the meeting that he was disappointed that the project did not begin years ago, since funding for the facility was made available to Grenada in 2002. "Three hundred and thirty-three thousand U.S dollars was earmarked for the Gouyave Health Centre since 2002,'' the Health Minister said."The project was for five years and that money should have been used before the five years.'' The Member of Parliament for St. George's South-East, Mr. Hood was one of the victorious candidates of the National Democratic Congress in the general election of July 8, 2008 He said: "When we came into office we realized the money earmarked for the Gouyave Health Centre wasn't used. Because of the difficulties to get the project moving, the World Bank has given leave that the project should be extended to June 2009.'' MP Church, the Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Planning, Economy, Energy and Foreign Trade, said the commencement of the project will be in keeping with an election campaign promise. "I want to remind ourselves that leading up to the victory of this current government, we committed ourselves to bringing the government closer to the people and this is one of the many ways which we intend to demonstrate our commitment,'' he said. When completed, The Gouyave Health Centre would replace an existing facility that is more than fifty years old.