ST JAMES, Jamaica — Infirmaries across the country will resume accepting new residents next month. Minister of Local Government and Community Development, Desmond McKenzie made the announcement on Friday.

“I am pleased to make the announcement here, today, in St James that commencing 1st of July, we will now open our infirmaries to accept new residents to the facilities,” he said.

He was speaking during a day of care for members of the parish’s homeless community.

Admissions were halted in 2019 due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“We are proud of our management of COVID in our infirmaries in Jamaica. Jamaica is one of the leading countries in the world where the deaths within the infirmaries, coming out of COVID, have been very, very minimal. Overall only 17 residents in the 16 facilities across Jamaica have died from COVID,” McKenzie disclosed.

He said there will be stringent conditions that the 300-plus individuals waiting for admittance will have to meet before being allowed admission.

“Each person who will apply for consideration will have to be fully vaccinated, they will have to have a COVID test done prior to entering the facility. They will be placed in isolation for whatever period the isolation lasts for and after they have finished the isolation, they will take one more COVID test and once they have passed that, they will be admitted to the infirmary,” McKenzie explained.

“We are still going to be limiting visits to the facility because we are not yet out of COVID and we still have to protect those persons within our infirmaries who find themselves in the vulnerable category of Jamaicans,” he added.