Nurses at University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) on Wednesday, September 30 received back-to-school donations for their children from Hope Gospel Assembly in St Andrew as a gesture of appreciation for their hard work on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Selected from the designated COVID-19 wards of the hospital, each nurse received a cash grant of $10,000, care packages and grocery, school bags with stationery, as well as treats in the form of gift vouchers from Pastry Passions in Kingston.

“We wanted to do something for the nurses, especially those who serve on the COVID-19 wards or in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit). We ended up putting the packages together in a short space of time and persons rallied to it. We are hoping that out of this, others will follow suit,” Rev Peter Garth of Hope Gospel Assembly told the Jamaica Observer.

Born out of the church’s annual back-to-school initiative, the donations were made in collaboration with the event’s corporate sponsors — Liguanea Drug and Garden Centre, General Foods, and Pastry Passions.

“We normally have a back-to-school fair and I thought we could support them at this time by donating some stationery and care packages to each nurse that was selected,” Rev Garth said.

“We thought of doing this because we know that they are working tirelessly. They are esteemed, hard-working nurses who were just excited about the fact that a church remembers their tireless and relentless work.

“This is the closest hospital to us, and we feel that we are called upon now to do more with less. We believe that if we share what we have and we tell them that we care about them then it will be an encouragement to them,” added Rev Garth.

In total, the church gave $570,000 worth of donations to 28 nurses.

Spearheaded by the Women’s Fellowship at Hope Gospel Assembly, the initiative was part of a community-wide outreach by the church to provide families in the Papine and August Town areas with care packages.

“We decided that we wanted to assist the community and this was one of the ideas that came up, which was to support health care workers, and our partners were all overjoyed with the idea that we wanted to show our appreciation in this way to the nurses,” president of the Women’s Fellowship, Dr Corent McDonald told the Observer.

During a brief handing-over ceremony held in the UHWI boardroom, nurses who spoke with the Observer expressed deep appreciation for the donations.

“I really appreciate this gesture by both Hope Gospel Assembly and the corporate partners because it makes us feel good,” said dialysis and intensive-care nurse Theodore Duncan.

“We are doing serious work. For myself, I come in contact with COVID-19 patients. I did an eight-hour contact this morning, and I’ve done over 20 hours of contact straight. And when you go under that kind of stress, sometimes you feel like just giving up.

“But when we have people show this kind of appreciation it feels good. And the more this happens, we feel even better. Our seniors sometimes are working hard at the top but they are not able to see us. So when we are recognised by the persons around us, we just really feel great,” said Duncan.

Heather Davis, nurses’ liaison officer from the nursing department, said the kind gesture has helped to “life the spirits” of the nurses as they continue to serve.

“These are nurses who work on what we call the COVID wards where all the positive COVID patients are, and I know that they are feeling very appreciated because, you know, they go along everyday and sometimes they don’t feel appreciated. So every now and then when something like this happens, it lifts their spirits and helps them to go on. I know that they are feeling very happy about what happened here today,” said Davis.