Health services hardest hit by lack of electricity in Trelawny Southern
Published:Friday | July 19, 2024 | 12:09 AMLeon Jackson/Gleaner Writer
Health services are the worst hit due to the loss of electricity as residents and businesses in Trelawny Southern continue to feel the effects of Hurricane Beryl.
An uncommonly strong early-season weather system, Beryl lashed Jamaica at Category 4 status and unleashed tremendous damage across the country, flattening, and destroying among many things poles that network the Jamaica Public Service’s (JPS) light and power lines above ground.
To ensure the safety of citizens, the JPS had to shut off power in affected areas with downed poles, as well as work in other areas where its infrastructure has been damaged beyond serviceable levels.
The light and power company has been working to restore service, which it says will take up to a month in some areas.
Parts of areas in Trelawny Southern get electricity from Christiana in the neighbouring parish of Manchester. According to the JPS, those areas will continue to be without electricity until Wednesday of next week.
Keriesa Bell-Cummings, the health services parish manager, said that they have been forced to shift their stock of medication within its clinic spaces for safekeeping and loss prevention.
“We have had to transfer medication from clinics across the area to Albert Town Clinic since it is the only one with equipment which can keep medication that needs refrigeration,” she told The Gleaner.
And while they are doing that, Bell-Cummings says because there is an immediacy often associated with medication for treatment, they are pushing to bring power to other health centres in the parish that need to refrigerate medicine.
“There are efforts being made through the Western Regional Health Authority to have generators at Ulster Spring and Warsop clinics commissioned into service,” she said.
The lack of electricity is also affecting entrepreneurial activities and Rhyan Saunders, a meat vendor from Warsop, says he has suffered astronomical losses while struggling to keep his business alive since Beryl’s passage.
“I have to be spending $4,500 per day on gas for my generator. Since the storm, I have lost $300,000. To make matters worse, I have not seen any Jamaica Public Service linesman in the area,” said Saunders.
Pakhai, a bar operator in Ulster Spring, admitsto being forced to cut back on his operations.
“I have had to scale down my operations drastically,” Pakhai said. “I close down early at nights and I don’t buy any drinks which may need refrigeration. It all boils down to losing business.”
Without an MP
Residents, meanwhile, have to be fighting their battles on their own as they have been without a member of parliament (MP) since Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert resigned last September after an Integrity Commission ruling that she be charged for allegedly making false statements on her statutory declarations.
Two political aspirants in Trelawny Southern – the Jamaica Labour Party’s Devon McDaniel and the People’s National Party’s Paul Patmore – are approaching the situation affecting residents differently.
“I have to be spending $10,000 per day for gas for my generator. I travel around the constituency and offer charging of phones,” Patmore told The Gleaner. “I am also begging friends to contribute to help farmers, and encouraging bar operators and meat shop operators to apply for help from the National Insurance Scheme and Rural Agricultural Development Authority. It’s been a difficult time for all residents if South Trelawny.”
“The prime minister is scheduled to announce help for the residents, especially farmers,” McDaniel offered. “I am waiting for the announcement, which will guide how I operate.”