MEMBER of Parliament (MP) for Westmoreland Central, George Wright, says the Government should implement a rent-to-own scheme for civil servants through the National Housing Trust (NHT), to assist people who continue to find it difficult to become homeowners.

“It is time for the Government to consider a rent-to-own initiative especially for civil servants, where the NHT build houses and allow residents to rent with the ability to own at a later date. Buying a house can be difficult for some. The rent-to-own initiative can build equity and provide the opportunity for the renter to pay towards owning the home over time,” the independent MP proposed in his state of the constituency presentation in the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

He said this would also provide the opportunity for inter-generational mortgages, enabling more families in constituencies to become homeowners.

Wright also urged the Government to establish a logistics hub system between Westmoreland, to resolve the problem of overweight trucking units plying between the parishes, resulting in significant damage to roadways. “The overloading of trucks have been affecting the road infrastructure, and dwarfing the [road] upgrades. We fix it today, only to wreck it tomorrow,” he remarked, appealing to the freight industry to “cease and desist this practice of overloading. They need to conform to a standardisation in operations”. He said the Government should also set aside emergency funding to repair farm roads in rural communities.

Meanwhile, the MP reiterated his call for more resources to be pumped into the Savanna-la-Mar hospital.

“I continue to lobby on behalf of the overworked doctors and nurses, as well as the frustrated residents for the sophisticated intensive care unit that will upgrade the care of patients. I would love to see the hospital upgraded from a type B to a type A facility as patients from Hanover and even St Elizabeth are transferred and treated there,” he stated, adding that more wards are needed to increase patient capacity.

Wright pointed out that many elderly patients are forced to travel outside of the parish, particularly to the Cornwall Regional Hospital in St James to seek medical care.

“The patients are having challenging times because travelling expenses and fees for care is a heavy burden. Sav-la-Mar hospital sees the most trauma in Jamaica — trauma caused by motor vehicle, bike accidents and criminal casualties — almost every day, yet still there is still not a radiologist or neurosurgeon on call. Further to that, patients have to be transported to other locations because the hospital doesn’t have a CT scan machine, [and] immediate urgent care cannot be rendered in these life-threatening situations,” he told the House.

Wright argued that while patients do receive services at the hospital, after treatment care such as physical therapy, is insufficient: “There are only three therapists but the needs are greater than provided to optimise more holistic outcomes.”

Wright is a first-term MP who won the Westmoreland Central seat in September 2020 on a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) ticket. He resigned from the ruling party in 2021 after being accused of physically assaulting a woman in a viral video. No charges were laid against the MP.