GREEN PARK, Trelawny — The end of the wait for some of the 300 indigent individuals on the list to be admitted at infirmaries across the island could be just around the corner as Government is said to be getting ready to admit new individuals into the facilities.

The ban on admission at infirmaries formed part of measures to control the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Speaking yesterday at a church service at Abundant Life Ministries in Green Park, Trelawny, to launch the start of Local Government and Community Development Month activities, Local Government and Rural Development Minister Desmond McKenzie indicated that his ministry, in tandem with the Ministry of Health and Wellness, had completed consultations on protocols to restart the admission process.

“[In] the next couple of weeks, the prime minister indicated that we are considering as to when we will open our infirmaries for new cases. We are hoping that if the [novel coronavirus] numbers remain steady and if conditions improve, that we will be able to open the doors of the facilities of our infirmaries right across the country to accept persons,” Mckenzie said.

McKenzie insisted that since 2016 the Andrew Holness-led Administration had been working assiduously to address issues affecting the nation’s homeless population and that recently ground was broken in Falmouth for the construction of the first night shelter outside of Kingston.

Work at the Trelawny Infirmary will be the main feature of activities to celebrate Local Government and Community Development Month, which is usually held during the first week of the month but was pushed back because Jamaica hosted the seventh Regional Platform for Diaster Risk Reduction in the Americas and the Caribbean. Other activities will include a Youth Mayors’ Forum on Wednesday. On Friday the local government minister will meet in Falmouth with the leadership of the Social Development Commission.

The local government minister lauded all infirmary workers, noting that their efforts had made Jamaica “one of the best countries in the world because our infirmaries have not suffered signigicant fallout because of COVID”.

House Speaker Marisa Dalrymple Philibert, who is also Member of Parliament for Trelawny Southern; Trelawny Northern Member of Parliament Tova Hamilton; minister of state in the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development Homer Davis; Custos of Trelawny Hugh Gentles; mayor of Falmouth, Councillor C Junior Gager; and a number of mayors from across the country were among those who were in attendance at the church service on Sunday.

Local Government and Community Development Month seeks to create greater awareness of local governance, assess the impact of the system on the country over the past year, and renew the commitment to the task of national transformation and maintenance of communities through interaction and service delivery to our people.

This year’s theme is ‘Local government at the forefront of building back stronger’.