Labour Ministry To Launch Disaster Self-reporting Form

The Ministry of Labour and Social Security will be launching a disaster self-reporting form, which will enable householders to submit information on Hurricane Melissa damage or loss electronically.

The self-reporting form will be available on the Ministry’s website at Ministry of Labour and Social Security.

Portfolio Minister, Hon. Pearnel Charles Jr., said that the form is for householders who were missed by the Ministry’s teams conducting damage assessments.

The report will trigger a visit by the assessor to collect detailed information.

“What we’re doing, based on the knowledge that we’ve gained from Hurricane Beryl… is that as we go through, there are persons who are not there. For them, we have developed a self-reporting mechanism to complement what we do on the ground, in terms of using the Jamaica Household Damage, Impact and Needs Assessment (JHDINA) tool.

“So those persons who we have missed or those persons who were missing, we can find them or give you a platform to let us know that you too have been impacted,” Mr. Charles Jr. said.

He was addressing a press conference on disaster response post Hurricane Melissa at the Ministry’s North Street offices in Kingston on Thursday (November 20).

The JHDINA tool is being utlised by field officers to conduct assessments on the ground. The system is digitised to improve the speed, accuracy, and accessibility of the data collected.

As at November 20, approximately 17,000 household damage assessments were completed, with more thanr 47,000 persons impacted.

The Minister said that 96 per cent of that data (15,443 records) has been entered into the JHDINA system.

In addition, 44 per cent of assessed sites sustained severe damage, classified as level three or four, and 43 per cent of the households with level-four damage (completely destroyed) were reported in Westmoreland.

Meanwhile, as the assessments continue, Minister Charles Jr. said that coordination with Members of Parliament (MPs), local authorities, humanitarian partners and charity organisations will be key.

“We are streamlining the collective efforts to ensure that we mitigate and eliminate duplication and we advance and increase efficiency. So, our parish managers will be consulting with MPs and we’ll be providing the schedule of the visits on a weekly and daily basis if needed. We will also be providing the list of persons who have been supported in whatever way, the assessments that have been done, and we would ask also that the constituency leaders, the MPs, similarly provide information to us,” he said.