WESTMORELAND, Jamaica — There will soon be a 30-bed field hospital available for those seeking treatment at the Savanna-la-Mar Hospital in Westmoreland, where nurses yesterday very vocally spoke about the strain they, and the facility, are under from COVID-19 cases.

Another 14 beds will be added after an area of the hospital is transformed into an additional isolation centre.

Meanwhile, the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA) has described as a misunderstanding the circumstances that led to Tuesday’s walkout by staff from the Accident and Emergency (A&E) ward.

“Plans were already in place to put a field hospital at the Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital in Westmoreland and, coincidentally, the tents were delivered [on Tuesday],” WRHA Chairman Eric Clarke told the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday.

“The hospital has 32 isolation beds and we have 84 patients [as of August 17]. It’s really about space for bed so that people don’t have to be in wheelchairs or lying on chairs, which is a problem which unfortunately happens from time to time.”

Clarke said miscommunication had led to the nurses’ protest and call for the facility to be deemed an emergency zone in response to the challenges being faced with handling COVID-19 cases.

According to Clarke, the hospital had been declared an emergency zone from August 12, which meant it would only accept critical cases. As usually happens when a hospital’s patient count exceeds its capacity, all non-critical cases are sent to other hospitals

He added that plans are already in motion to rectify many of the issues that were raised by the nurses during Tuesday’s stand-off. Efforts are underway, he said, to hire additional staff pending approval by the health ministry; to fix the malfunctioning air conditioning unit; and provide much needed equipment.

He also pointed to the alarming numbers as the novel coronavirus continues to ravage the parish, and the challenges with overcoming vaccine hesitancy.

“[Westmoreland] is the parish most affected within the region by COVID-19,” Clarke said. “The death rate between the eighth and fifteenth of this month were 29 COVID-19 related deaths.”

He added that Westmoreland is the least vaccinated parish, a little below the 10 per cent seen in other areas. 

“Last Sunday we had 76 patients at Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital in serious or critical condition,” Clarke explained. “Seventy-five of those patients had not received any COVID vaccine, and one patient had received only one vaccine. So, what we are seeing is the unvaccinated ones in the serious to critical conditions. So, I really want to appeal to everybody, if you have been sitting on the fence and thinking about taking the vaccine, please go and get your vaccine.”

The vaccine drive continues daily basis across the region; no appointment is required.

Rosalee Wood