THE prolonged drought has severely hampered the services offered by two crucial health facilities — Heart Foundation of Jamaica and the Jamaica Cancer Society — but they are nevertheless striving to remain open for the benefit of members of the public.

Operators of the two with whom the Jamaica Observer spoke said the lack of water has been the source of several inconveniences, as the National Water Commission (NWC) now supplies piped water every three days in the Kingston Metropolitan Area.

“The first day we were inconvenienced we didn’t realise the water would be gone for so long,” said a representative from the Jamaica Cancer Society. She said, since then, the society has ensured they have enough water for day-to-day operations by purchasing water a day in advance on a regular basis.

In the case of the Heart Foundation of Jamaica, which uses water for the cleaning of the facilities and equipment up to three times a day, it has been incurring more costs for water than ever before.

“What we spend on water now is three to four times our National Water Commission (NWC) bill,” said Nadia Prince, the foundation’s operations supervisor. She said this has been a great strain on the foundation as it is a non-profit organisation that barely makes anything on its income.

According to the entity’s senior manager for health administration, Nola Phillpotts-Brown, the foundation has to purchase a full truck of water at least twice a week and bottled water for drinking every other day.

Phillpotts-Brown explained that, before the drought, the Heart Foundation was used to general lock-offs and so there was always water put away for use in the bathrooms and their tank would be off on a normal basis when necessary. However, since the drought, the tank is now constantly in use as water is needed in so many areas for the foundation to properly function.

But the strain being put on the tank is but one of many problems faced by the Heart Foundation concerning water.

“Since the beginning of July and the announcement of the alternate days to get water we have not had any water in the pipes,” Prince told the Observer.

She made reference to a bill she recently received from the NWC that showed that over the past 38 days, the Heart Foundation has received only 4,000 litres of water which is equivalent to around 1,050 gallons of water.

Prince said that amount is simply not enough as the foundation has to purchase between 1,600 to 2,000 gallons of water every other day. She said the foundation does not exceed their daily capacity as they use roughly 1,500 gallons a day but they do buy extra for the following day in the event the truck is not able to fill the tanks in a timely fashion because of high demand.

“I didn’t realise it was that bad initially, because we have been calling every day to get water from NWC, and they always tell us they are giving priority to public health facilities and schools, but yet we have not been getting trucked water from them, not once,” said Prince, who maintained that she was not criticising the NWC as she understands demand is high.

On the other hand, the South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA) stated in a recent press release that it was working to maintain a steady flow of water supply in all its facilities in light of the water shortage due to the drought.

According to SERHA board chairman, Andrei Cooke, despite efforts to secure additional water supply from the NWC, as well as private companies, some health facilities that fall under the responsibility of the region are experiencing difficulties in obtaining water in a timely manner.

“We have put measures in place to ensure that all our health facilities have adequate water supply, however, the drought has severely hampered the supply to some of our institutions such as the Kingston Public Hospital,” he said in the release.

Cooke explained that, as a result of this, patients at public health facilities may experience delays in service delivery and he urged them to “bear with us as we continue to tackle this issue”.

He apologised for any inconvenience the water supply shortage may have caused, and said he urged the public to give their full cooperation to the health workers.

The SERHA board chairman also encouraged the public to visit the health centres for health care services for non-urgent illnesses so as to ease the burden on public hospitals.