MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Director of the Southern Regional Health Authority (SRHA) Michael Bent has asked the charity organisation, Friends of Porus, to lend it’s voice to an appeal to the Manchester community to get vaccinated.

The SRHA head requested the group’s support during the handing over of a wide range of medical supplies and equipment donated by the Friends of Porus Association to the Porus Clinic in Manchester last Thursday.

The items, which included a tent and valued at over $1 million dollars, range from a variety of protective medical gear, cleaning and sanitising materials and hand-held thermometers.

Bent, in thanking the association for what he said was a “timely and highly appreciated” donation, asked the association members present to join in the effort to get more members of the Porus community, in particular, to take up the vaccine.

He said that 19 months of the novel coronavirus pandemic had taken a serious toll on the human and material resources of the Ministry of Health and Wellness, adding that it was primarily through vaccination that the high levels of death and hospitalisation can be curtailed.

Public health nurse Maxine Isaacs, in charge of the Porus Health District, in accepting the gifts, said the tent, which was already pitched, would offer shelter for more clients, who, on account of social distancing, could only have been accommodated outdoors.

Public relations officer of the Friends of Porus Association, Seymour Stewart, traced the history of the group back to its formation in Albany, New York, USA, nearly 30 years ago. He said a group of patriotic Jamaicans came together to help their former Manchester community and since then they have made donations in cash and kind to the Porus library, local schools, the police station, the community centre, as well as needy individuals.

The association now has members in much of the Jamaican Diaspora, including Canada and the United Kingdom.