UPDATE | Optometry training facility to be established in Black River
Published:Monday | August 1, 2022 | 12:06 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
RESIDENTS OF Black River, St. Elizabeth, are to benefit from the economic spin-off that will come with the expansion and introduction of optometry training at the All-American Institute of Medical Sciences (AAIMS).
AAIMS, which is a privately owned and operated offshore medical school, was established 2009 in Black River.
That southern coastal town has the enviable record of being the first town to have electricity and to have a motor car driving on its streets.
Floyd Green, the member of Parliament for St. Elizabeth South Western, told The Gleaner that the enviable distinction will continue as part of the Black River rebirth, in partnership with AAIMS.
“We are going to be working with the American School of Medicine. They are putting down a new infrastructure to be the first school in Jamaica to offer optometry training,” Green said.
“We are going to use that to attract foreign students to come and study in Jamaica,” he stated.
Green, who is also minister without portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister, did not give a timeline for the commencement of AAIMS optometry training centre. However, he said that Black River would benefit from various initiatives, leading up to 2030, when it will be make her own contribution to the country's economic growth.
With the township fully built out, Green said the construction of the residential community will give rise to services and will help to push the expansion and development of the capital.
“It is very difficult, as you can see, it's already built out,” Green said of Black River.
He noted that people are now repurposing buildings and developing unused spaces and that there is an expansion of Black River's commercial activities filtering into the direction of the Luana district, on its outskirts.
“The good thing is that we are building housing units into that Luana area, 192 lots. We are going to be building over 400 housing solutions over the course of the next two years, which will pull in Black River people who will need service and areas to go to,” Green stated.
Along with Luana, the MP said, people are expanding their developments into the Independence Park area.
EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this story said the training programme was about ophthalmology. That is not so. The programme is correctly an optometry initiative. We regret the error.