Frustration over electricity woes leading to psychiatric issues, says Phillips
MEMBER of Parliament for Manchester North Western Mikael Phillips says the frustration among his constituents still without power has resulted in at least two teenagers requiring psychiatric assistance.
“The tension level has risen to the highest I have seen in my own constituency. A couple weeks ago we had to rush a young girl, 16, to the hospital. Now she is on medication and getting psychiatric help because of the stress that it has caused on her on not having electricity,” he told the Jamaica Observer on Friday.
Phillips said he is not optimistic about Monday’s deadline for Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) to restore power to its customers, except those in St Elizabeth.
“When we try to reach out to JPS, because they are a private entity they believe that they don’t have to respond to us as the political representatives. Every other day I have to be sending Minister [Daryl] Vaz a list of the communities that don’t have any electricity,” Phillips explained.
“There ought to be more sanctions on JPS than just the $2 million for missing so many dates and just treating the people arbitrarily,” he argued.
Last month the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) issued a directive for JPS to repair its damaged network infrastructure and to follow its August 12 schedule to restore power to customers who lost power during Hurricane Beryl five weeks ago, or face $2 million in fines.
However, on Thursday JPS advised that it set a deadline of August 31 for sections of St Elizabeth, where its network was worst affected by Hurricane Beryl, to be restored.
“I see JPS now saying for St Elizabeth it is August 31 before they get electricity but there are still a number of pockets within the parish of Manchester that don’t have any electricity. Partial restoration has been done, but not full restoration. This is going [almost] two months now and these people don’t have electricity,” he said.
Phillips said some residents have had to relocate to access electricity to preserve their medication.
“You have people moving out of communities because of health issues. They can’t even store their medication in a fridge! What you find is JPS does partial restoration in some communities and just ignore them,” he said.
He reiterated his criticism of JPS while pointing out that the Government’s hands are tied.
“They [JPS] have not responded to any, if not most Members of Parliament. The only persons they respond to is the Government, which puts us in a precarious position because we have no control over what is happening,” he said.
“What is happening is incompetence by JPS; you can’t be treating customers the way that they are doing,” added Phillips.
He listed areas such as Comfort Hall, Spice Grove, parts of Hatfield, Freetown, Bushy Park, sections of Epping Forest and Maidstone among those without electricity.
“I have one resident who, [because of] her medication, she had to move out of the community. One lady messaged me saying that they stole a generator that she bought; now she has to be renting one. And she seh she can’t pass [go beyond] today in renting it, because of the cost,” he said.
“The tension level rises when you fix electricity in a community and because there is a downed pole you leave it and move out — so half the community has electricity and the other half doesn’t. That in itself causes a lot of tension on residents and the community itself,” he added.
He believes JPS’s response is an indication that the company was not adequately prepared for the Hurricane season.
“It just shows that JPS was not ready for a hurricane. Just imagine if the eye of the storm had crossed the island,” he said.
“It is not in the hands of the political representatives but it is now that we are getting blamed for not being able to assist the residents. This general communication and breaking of timeline is not working in an environment like this right now,” added Phillips.
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