Friends of the Bustamante Hospital for Children, in Kingston, have initiated a project to improve amenities for parents and guardians who have to take children to the institution. The group, along with their partners, are seeking to raise $8 million to construct a restroom and other facilities at the hospital. Their major fund-raiser will be held at King’s House on...

More than 250 indigent persons across the parish of Hanover benefited from medical and dental care and other services at a health fair staged recently by the Hanover Poor Relief Department at its offices on Miller’s Drive in Lucea. Inspector of Poor, Neika Edram, tells JIS News that the fair, which is in its sixth year, not only targets the...

Approximately 50,000 residents of several communities in northern Clarendon are to benefit from improved health services through the upgrading and expansion of the Chapelton Community Hospital. Beverly Nichols, a native of the district of Blackwoods, who currently resides in the United States (US), is donating US$1 million for the project through her Push Start Foundation. The one-year undertaking will include...

Several public-sector entities have responded to the call from Minister of Health, Dr. the Hon. Christopher Tufton, to institute workplace wellness programmes, as part of the national effort to combat non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The Minister has issued an appeal for heads of agencies to assign officers to coordinate the wellness efforts, which include ensuring that employees have access to healthier...

Members of the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) church are to assist the Health Ministry to improve the infrastructure of some 100 health centres across the island, and to spread its healthy lifestyle message to reduce non-communicable diseases (NCDs). President of the Jamaica Union of the SDA Conference, Pastor Everett Brown, says the church decided to support the Ministry of Health...

Chief Medical Officer (CMO) in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Jacqueline Bisasor-McKenzie, is encouraging public support for the Ministry’s vector control programme, aimed at containing and reducing dengue fever. She notes that while the Ministry heightens interventions such as fogging, clean-up activities and citizen sensitisation to reduce the prevalence of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits the disease, public participation...

An idea for the development of a solution to provide timely emergency services, led to the creation of a mobile software App-‘First Alert’. The emergency response platform that persons can access through their phones, was developed by First Responders Technology Limited, a Kingston based Technology firm, headed by Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Aldain Reid. Mr. Reid tells JIS News, that...

The Ministry of Health recently held its first camp for ambassadors of the Jamaica Moves Initiative in the Western Region, which is aimed at spreading messages about health and wellness throughout the nation’s schools, as well as preventing the nation’s youth from acquiring non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Director of Health Promotion and Education at the Ministry of Health, Takese Foga, tells...

Hundreds of residents from communities in St. James and Westmoreland have benefitted from free health services through the Don Daly Medical Mission. The eight-day programme started on December 10 and will continue until Monday (Dec. 17). A 55-member team, comprised of volunteers from the Florida-based Nova Southeastern University (NSU), is offering free medical checks, optometry services and pharmaceuticals at locations...