Diaspora Members Urged to Support Adopt-A-Clinic Programme

Members of the Jamaican Diaspora are being urged to support the Adopt-A-Clinic Programme, by Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr. the Hon. Christopher Tufton.

The Minister said this would represent a meaningful contribution to primary healthcare, in the ongoing rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Melissa.

Addressing a recent virtual meeting, hosted by the Embassy of Jamaica, in Washington DC, United States (US), the Minister said that an individual, entity or a group of individuals can express interest in a “special adoption” of a health centre, and it could be in their community, where the support “would bring back, in a meaningful way, health services within a community where the impact has been great”.

Dr. Tufton told the forum that during the passage of Hurricane Melissa on October 28, the country lost a lot of vehicles for the movement of people, movement of health services, movement of vector workers and equipment, and that a lot of ambulances were destroyed.

“The equipment that does the spraying, or the mobile clinics, an ambulance, for example, cost $25 million. We work with Toyota Jamaica. They convert those vehicles, regular high-speed buses, and they can build it out to be an ambulance at a cheaper cost,” he said.

Dr. Tufton said the cost for one of the vehicles could be about US$100,000, and that a “couple of persons could come together and make that donation, or one could contribute towards it”.

“There is a lot of flexibility but the mobility of health services is critical, and we did suffer a lot last year, and we felt this was a good thing to package as a possible donation,” the Minister said.

Dr. Tufton said the Ministry is big on primary healthcare, providing health services in communities through mobile health clinics, and persons in the diaspora can provide support to that area of public health, because “mobile health clinics are a big part of the future”.

“We are going into communities and filling prescriptions until the health centres and the pharmacies are back up and running, and this [mobile clinic] is a valuable piece of equipment that can really go a far way to helping to take healthcare to communities in rural Jamaica. And that would be a great donation by anyone or any group,” he said.

The Minister also reported that the sector lost a lot of diagnostic equipment because of water damage when roofs were blown off, and that the Ministry will provide specifications to persons or entities wishing to donate equipment.