WESTERN BUREAU — The Good Shepherd Foundation, a charitable organisation that operates the HIV/AIDS hospice in Montego Bay, is in need of financial support to improve the hospice’s facilities and offer refuge to the increased number of persons living with the disease.

Among those calling for this support is president of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mark Kerr-Jarrett.

“My appeal to you is to join this Godly effort of caring for our sick, destitute and dying. The poor will always be amongst us but that is not an excuse to ignore them. The Good Shepherd Foundation is proving that not only do they talk the talk but they walk it as well,” Kerr-Jarrett told the Observer. “You might be saying I don’t have much money but money isn’t all. Even if you can only give $500 a month or $100 a month, as we say in Jamaica: one, one cocoa full basket. And if we can get 1,000 people to give $100 a month we would get somewhere…,” the chamber president appealed.

Kerr-Jarrett was addressing a group of about 60 businessmen and women who had gathered recently at the Holiday Inn Resort for the annual launch of the Bishop’s Human Resources and Development Drive, which netted a half of a million dollars in 2000 when it was first launched.

The drive is geared at raising funds for the Good Shepherd Foundation and falls under the patronage of Reverend Charles Dufour of Montego Bay, who started the foundation and who opened the hospice in 1997. Last year it was restricted to the Roman Catholic churches and netted $229,835 which was used principally to cover costs at the hospice.

The hospice is home to 15 adults and two children, ages six and four, with HIV/AIDS.

“Amongst the Montego Bay population of 120,000 people there are currently 4,800 HIV-positive people walking around this city and each one of them will at some stage need the services of somewhere like the Good Shepherd Foundation,” Kerr-Jarrett said.

To meet that demand, he said, the foundation is seeking to expand the facility at a cost of $4.5 million.

However, for the project to get off the ground, it is going to require the support of persons other than well-known businessman, Pino Maffessanti, who is spearheading the expansion.

The project will include the construction of:

* three additional bedrooms;

* two bathrooms;

* a kitchen and a dining room; and

* a nurses’ quarters.

There are at present five bedrooms, a bathroom and a nurses’ quarters at the facility, which has a staff complement of four nurses and two ancillary workers. The nurses’ quarters, located on a ground floor of the facility, is partitioned to serve both as a kitchen and storage area.

Since the hospice, which cost some $3 million a year to run, opened its doors in 1997 more than 200 people infected with AIDS have died there. Another 11 have died there so far this year.

Of the 15 adults currently living there, 10 are males and the others females. The two children are boys who lost their parents to the disease.

“It’s a very distressing experience to go up there but one has to give God thanks because at least they are not on the street. They are being cared for… And it is essential that this facility be expanded, not just maintained,” Kerr-Jarrett, who visited the facility recently said. “There is nothing more distressing than seeing a six year-old that you know is going to die but you have to give that child comfort because his family will not. That child is now an outcast to be thrown on the refuse heap of humanity and this is where the Good Shepherd Foundation steps in and gives these individuals some dignity in their last days,” said Kerr-Jarrett.

He said, however, that he was appalled at the failure of the government to lend its support to the foundation in a meaningful way and urged the finance ministry to grant them tax exemption.

“The foundation is doing a job which should be done by the state… I was appalled and alarmed to hear the government is giving this organisation resistance in getting tax exemption. It is the kind of short-sighted, bureaucratic foul-up that has to be overcome and overcome now,” he said.

He added: “So I make an appeal to the Ministry of Finance to… apply a little bit of common sense and caring. The Good Shepherd Foundation is doing your job. They should have all the benefits you would have as the government if you were doing it.”

In addition to the AIDS hospice, there are a number of other institutions that the foundation helps to run. They include:

* Home of Charlottés Children, which is located on the same property as the hospice and which is home to 12 under-privileged children;

* Children of Hope in Montego Bay, which feeds and schools about 180 children;

* the Willows Might in St Ann, which cares for 22 mentally and physically challenged children;

* Hope (Teaching) Health Clinic that offers medical and dental care to the “poorest of the poor” in the community; and

* the Holy Family Self-Help Clinic in Mount Salem that offers skills training to both men and women.

In addition Bishop Dufour said they had also started a number of schools across western Jamaica, including a basic school in Orange Hill, Westmoreland and another at Revival in the parish.

“It is a non-denominational Foundation. We take people irrespective of colour class or creed. We’re not interested in where you’re from. As long as you are a human being we cater to your needs,” the bishop said.