Energy firm donates vital equipment to hospital
Medical equipment valued at $750,000 was last Tuesday donated to the Spanish Town Hospital in St Catherine by Jamaica Energy Partners Limited.
The equipment, received by Health Minister John Junor in a ceremony held at the hospital, include a blood analysing machine, a portable suction machine, and an ECG monitoring machine.
Beulah Stevens, parish manager for the South East Regional Health Authority, who said that the equipment would enhance the quality of health care offered to patients, made special mention of the blood analysing machine, which she said was an important tool in the management of critically ill patients.
“It will save lives. It will save time and it will save money,” she said.
According to Stevens, before the hospital received the machine, they were forced to send an ambulance on several trips per day to Kingston to have blood analysed. In addition, she said many phone calls had to be made before the results were received.
Stevens said the machine would analyse patients with chest trauma and elderly patients with chronic infections.
Human resource manager at Jamaica Energy Partners, Odeth Reynolds, said her organisation was committed to “fostering closer ties and continued partnership with the hospital”.
Minister Junor, in his remarks, said that private sector companies, individuals and non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) had played a “tremendous role” in the expansion of health facilities, and had also provided equipment for the health sector.
He congratulated the company for demonstrating good corporate citizenship and noted that since their establishment in 1995, they had been involved in several projects to benefit the environment.
“This is surely demonstrating the kind of corporate citizenship that we want to encourage in our country,” he added.
The Spanish Town Hospital is a Type B health facility, which has a bed capacity of 377. It provides services for residents of Portmore and the rest of St Catherine, which has a population of just over 480,000.