MONTEGO BAY, St James – Minister of Health Dr Fenton Ferguson says discussions are presently under way with the Jamaica Fire Brigade and the Jamaica Defence Force with the aim of having them play a key role in the transportation of Ebola patients, should the need arise.
“We are in discussions with the fire brigade and also the army who will play a role in the movement, because especially the firemen, they are accustomed to wearing overalls,” Ferguson said Thursday while on a tour of a JA $30-million Isolation Ebola Treatment Centre being constructed at the Cornwall Regional Hospital in St James.
Until construction is complete, the hospital has retrofitted a dialysis building to deal temporarily with Ebola patients.
The facility is to be used as the main treatment centre for the western health region which comprises Trelawny, St James, Hanover and Westmoreland. Other hospitals in the area will have what is called a holding area, from where patients will be transported to the Cornwall Regional facility using an ambulance solely dedicated for that purpose.
“In each region, certainly I know in SERHA (South East Regional Health Authority), you will have a dedicated ambulance. So, it is not going to be any ambulance that is going to move a suspected case, it’s going to be a dedicated ambulance,” said Dr Ferguson.
The minister added that in the same way that holding areas have been put in place at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, best practises would demand such action for the cruise shipping ports of Montego Bay and Falmouth.
