NEGRIL, Westmoreland — THE Western Regional Health Authority's Negril Health Centre was recently given a major boost with the donation of a brand new refrigerator, desktop computer and DVD player from the Sandals Foundation.

The items, which were handed over last Friday, are expected to equip the public health care facility to better meet the needs of patients and add value to the service it offers.

Addressing health care providers and patients at the handover ceremony, Sandals Foundation representative and Beaches Sandy Bay general manager Brian Sang noted that the donation is the first in a long-term commitment by the philanthropic organisation for the development of the health care facility.

“We [the Sandals Foundation] are dedicated to building communities and impacting lives… and this is evident in the scores of projects we have implemented across the Caribbean. It is this same vision that led us to recognise the need at the Negril Health Centre and the next step in this project is a $1-million expansion of the facility to better accommodate patients,” Sang stated.

The clinic, which was built to accommodate a 45-patient complement, currently serves over 100 residents from the communities of Little London, Delveland, Negril and their environs on a daily basis.

Arlene Willams-Grant, a records officer at the centre noted that working without the use of a computer has been very challenging.

“Doing everything manually takes up a lot of time. We’ve had to purge dockets for persons who haven't visited in over 10 years and rewrite them for submission to the regional office for record keeping. Some administrators have even had to take the long journey to Savanna-la-Mar to type a report. With this computer we will have to enter information dating as far back as 1987, but in the end it will definitely improve efficiency, client record keeping and data collection,” she explained.