Western Jamaica still awaiting cost estimate for nearly 100 storm-damaged health centres

CRAIGHEAD, Manchester — Roughly eight months after Hurricane Melissa swept through western Jamaica, authorities still cannot put a dollar figure on repairs needed at clinics battered by the storm. Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton told reporters on Thursday that assessment work continues across the region, where close to 100 health centres recorded damage.

"The engineers are in the field doing the analysis now…and we do anticipate that in the next month or so we will have a better handle on what the costs are and we will start the more substantial renovation of a number of health centres," Tufton said. He was speaking at the reopening of the Craighead Health Centre in northern Manchester.

The facility provides care for about 18,000 residents in northern Manchester and areas bordering southern Trelawny. It underwent $45.6 million in renovation and expansion under Operation Refresh.

Michael Bent, director at the Southern Regional Health Authority, said the investment included converting a former staff cottage into clinical space. "We demolished the old cottage and we also put in concrete walls for resilience. We modernised the waiting area by putting in an air conditioning unit, and tiling the floors. The space didn't have any parking, so we had to convert an area — a gully — into a parking area for 20-odd staff members," he said. Bent added that fencing, upgraded bathroom facilities, and roofing were also part of the scope. "The roof [sustained] minor damage during the passage of Hurricane Melissa," he noted.

Tufton commended the National Health Fund for its Operation Refresh initiative and said additional programmes would be used to accelerate clinic upgrades. "We also are looking at substantial renovation of some [centres] that are under the health system's strengthening programme. We are going to be opening up a number of them over the next [few] months in Old Harbour, St Jago and Portmore," he said.

The minister also used the event to appeal to younger Jamaicans to support the elderly. "We have 375,000 Jamaicans now who are over 60 years old and by 2030 it will be over 400,000. With fewer children being born we have more older persons," he said. "I am calling on our younger generation, our children, to look after our ageing. Don't abandon them in hospitals or in their homes to be alone, because loneliness is a disease. And, indeed, we owe it to them as they have given back to us — whether blood relative or not," Tufton added.