Newly Rehabilitated Barrett Town Health Centre To Serve Thousands

Some 9,000 residents of Barrett Town and neighbouring areas in St. James, are benefiting from improved health services at the newly rehabilitated community health centre.

The facility was officially handed over on Friday (February 11), following a $43.8-million upgrading project, which included the addition of new offices, a records room, a kitchenette, restrooms for staff and patients and a nebulisation room.

The project was implemented by the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) under the European Union (EU)-funded Poverty Reduction Programme (PRP).

Currently in its fourth phase, the PRP is focused on improving living conditions in underserved communities by providing access to quality basic infrastructure and services in the areas of education, water, health, and sanitation.

Residents of Barrett Town are pleased with the improvements undertaken, which will also provide a more comfortable environment for the clinic’s 13 healthcare staff.

“It benefits a lot of persons – pregnant mothers and others who come to the health centre for all sorts of reasons. So all of us appreciate it,” Carol Kerr told JIS News.

“It’s such a wonderful gift to all of us from JSIF and the [EU], so we just want to thank them…. everything is beautiful and I give God thanks,” she added.

Another resident, Hilma Moore, said she is proud to have such a facility in Barrett Town.

“Over the years, I have been living here and it was never like this; I am so happy. I feel overwhelmed, I am overjoyed, and I hope that the people of this community will take care of our health centre,” she said.

Chairman of JSIF, Dr. Wayne Henry, in his remarks at the opening of the Barrett Town Health Centre, said that the value of the work done should not be viewed simply as a monetary investment but “rather, an investment for tomorrow, our future”.

He noted that the Barrett Town Health Centre is the fifth across the island and the fourth in St. James to benefit from upgrading work under the PRP at a cost of just over $252 million.

The other three are Adelphi, Granville, and Flanker health centres. The fifth facility is the Bog Walk Health Centre in St. Catherine.

Dr. Henry said that “the populace of the western end of the island will be progressively better served” by the work done to improve healthcare in St. James under the PRP.

“It is our hope that citizens will attain better health outcomes in the short to medium term,” he added.

Dr. Henry, who is also Director General of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), the National Authorising Officer (NAO) responsible for monitoring and coordinating the implementation of EU-funded programmes in the island, expressed gratitude to the organisation for its commitment to the four phases of the PRP over the past 27 years.

He also commended the entities that have been working tirelessly to ensure the successful execution of projects.

Head of the EU Delegation to Jamaica, Ambassador Marianne Van Steen, in her remarks noted that the Barrett Town Health Centre is “for those who are most vulnerable – the children, the elderly, those people who live with chronic conditions, people living with disabilities. Through this health centre we hope that they will be given easy access to preventative and remedial care”.

Ambassador Van Steen said that the EU is “very committed to continue to assist the Government of Jamaica and we are very much looking towards health”.

Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, who is the Member of Parliament for St. James East Central, where the Barrett Town Health Centre is located, noted that the clinic will serve several communities.

He encouraged staff and residents of the beneficiary areas, to take care of the facility.