MP wants water issues settled before the new hospital opens

WESTERN BUREAU:

St James Central Member of Parliament (MP) Heroy Clarke wants the water shortage issues currently affecting Appleton Hall and surrounding areas to be resolved before the new Western Children and Adolescent Hospital is official opened.

Clarke, who was speaking during Thursday’s Constituency Development Fund consultation meeting at Cornwall College in Montego Bay, said the water supply challenges in the area, which is already complicated by an outdated pump in Appleton Hall, will worsen once the medical facility, which is located on the grounds of the Mount Salem-based Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH), is opened.

“What has happened is that in the 1960s, when the Appleton Hall’s pump was put in place, there were about 300 or 400 houses. That same pump today has not changed, although they have fixed it on so many occasions, but it is now serving Rose Heights, which has grown leaps and bounds, plus Cornwall Courts, which has some 20,000 households and growing, and it has to serve Rosemount Gardens, Farm Heights, Green Pond, Salt Spring, and all the way up to Flower Hill,” said Clarke.

“That same pump serves the hospital, and the water has to go into the hospital first. We are now adding another hospital, the Children and Adolescent Hospital, and if CRH originally took 30 per cent of the water, add another 30 per cent to it,” said Clarke. “I am still keeping my fingers crossed that before this new hospital is open, we will see the implementation of the new pump at Appleton Hall. I was given the assurance that that pump that is going to be taken from Appleton Hall and will be placed at First Left at Rose Heights.”

In 2023, Matthew Samuda, the minister with responsibility for water, announced that a new pump would be installed at Appleton Hall to improve the water supply flow over a three-month period.

However, Clarke told Thursday’s meeting that the water supply issue in the area is further complicated by old water pumps, which are prone to damage and leaking because of the pressure placed on them.

“The National Water Commission (NWC) is not like the Jamaica Public Service, who can just change out two feet of a line and then it is done. The system that is in place is old, and so you find the pipe is rusted or leaking, and the minute that they put pressure on it, it is going to break somewhere,” said Clarke. “The water-resilience programme that is coming on stream will rip out all the old pipes and put in new and larger pipes so that we will get water.”

Clarke was referencing the NWC’s $10 billion Western Water Resilience Improvement Project, which aims to install 29 kilometres of pipelines from Martha Brae, Trelawny, to Montego Bay, St James, as well as the replacement of lines between Lucea, Hanover, and Negril, Westmoreland.

That project, listed in the 2025-26 Public Bodies Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure, is intended to improve service reliability across St Ann, Trelawny, St James, and the Hanover-Westmoreland border.

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