LUCEA, Hanover — Six months after it was revealed that the Government-operated Noel Holmes Hospital is without a working washing machine, health officials are still scrambling to find a permanent solution. Meanwhile, concerns have been raised that a machine was sourced but diverted to another hospital.

“In regards to the laundry department, in particular, that department has been struggling in trying to get… a new industrial washing machine. To date, we have been collaborating with our partners,” parish manager for the Hanover Health Services Aldwayne Beckford told last Thursday’s monthly meeting of the parish’s municipal corporation.

In the past, the Type-C hospital depended on the generous assistance of a private resort in the parish and other government entities to get laundry done. According to Beckford, a decision was taken to purchase a small machine to alleviate the backlog of items to be washed. The Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital will also assist. Noel Holmes, Cornwall Regional, and Savanna-la-Mar Public General hospitals all fall under the management of the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA).

“We are working with our partners — private and in other hospitals — to clear up our backlog,” assured Beckford.

He is hoping an industrial-size washing machine will be in place by the end of the financial year, which is March of next year. He noted that while overseas suppliers have been engaged, it will take some time for the equipment to arrive in Jamaica. Beckford also noted that, while the expected machine is larger than the space in the laundry room it is to be housed in, the issue has been resolved.

However, Councillor Darren Barnes (People’s National Party, Riverside Division) alleged that the industrial-sized machine had already been purchased but rerouted to the Cornwall Regional Hospital in St James.

Beckford insisted that Barnes’ statement was not factual, but mayor of Lucea Sheridan Samuels intervened.

“I will not sit here and agree with you on that. I will just draw your attention to something. Based on what I am reading, it seems as if the health ministry doesn’t follow protocols at all. If you look at the way they spend the COVID money… So what you are saying to me now will have to be placed in black and white and let me read it,” stated Samuels.

“So, if the machine is at Cornwall, you people are going to find some way to spin it around saying that it is not there because you don’t even have a proper way of registering the assets that you buy in the Ministry of Health,” he chided.

His comments came within the context of concerns raised by the Auditor General’s Department (AuGD) that as it battled COVID-19 the Ministry of Health and Wellness displayed some good practices but failed in some areas of procurement and records management, paying out hundreds of millions without a paper trail.

The AuGD also said the ministry spent $189.21 million to purchase fixed assets, which it said was to support its COVID-19 response efforts. However, Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis said her department’s review of a sample of fixed assets purchased totalling $55 million found that the ministry spent $2 million on the purchase of 45 televisions and 15 tablets, but did not indicate on the purchase records the reasons for acquiring these devices. Consequently, the auditors said they were not able to determine how these items related to the COVID-19 response.