JUNCTION, St Elizabeth — Local health and environmental leaders are pushing for greater partnerships in the country’s response to climate change and health care.

Community leaders recently discussed aspects of Jamaica’s response to the continuing threat during a climate and health awareness symposium with support of research under the European Union CARIFORUM climate strengthening climate health system in the Caribbean Project Fellowship Programme.

Director of emergency disaster management and special services in the Ministry of Health Dr Nicole Dawkins-Wright emphasised the importance of climate change and health awareness as she addressed symposium.

“If we are able to demonstrate that we can diversify how we communicate and share information, and get people to understand what they can do for themselves, it can help them to become resilient and face this challenge in what climate change is going to mean from a health perspective and livelihood,” Dawkins-Wright told the Jamaica Observer at the symposium held at Lover’s Leap in St Elizabeth recently.

She added that most people are concerned about how climate change will affect their livelihood.

“Because at the end of the day, it comes to how much money [people] are going to carry home at the end of the week, and how much [they] can [afford], and to send their children to school,” she said.

Dr Dawkins-Wright said the sensitisation and use of technology will assist in the way people respond to climate change and their health.

“I think this is a platform that we need to build on in terms of getting people to take greater responsibility for their health. This is just one aspect, it is an important aspect and is the foundation of how we can attack it,” she said.

“The use of information technology and devices such as an app at our fingertips… We have to address the issue of people’s fear of change, the unknown, or something different. We have to feed things in small pieces to people,” she added.

Dr Dawkins-Wright said although her fellowship has ended under Caribbean Project Fellowship Programme, she continues to serve in the response to climate change through her position at the Ministry of Health and Wellness.

“I am the ministry’ climate change focal point and I have a job to do, which is to build the awareness, so what [this symposium] has helped me to do is to galvanise content to help to build the sensitisation programme for climate change and help for the people who are affected, and what we in the health [sector] need to do to make people more resilient in the face of climate change,” she said.

In the meantime, managing director of Change Communications Limited, Indi Mclymount-Lafayette, also emphasised the importance of climate-health awareness.

“A very critical thing has been done today in that we have started the process in galvanising climate action especially regarding the links with climate change and health. For the community that means taking stock of some of the things that are critical and that needs to be prioritised [including] the response system to the drought and…other climate-health-related impacts,” said Mclymount-Lafayette.

“Part of what we were exploring today is how the community can organise itself and partner with the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders, because partnership both under the sustainable development goals and the Paris Agreement is what is going to make us survive,” she added.

She said among the critical issues is climate departure.

“The summer is starting and just a few days into May and we are already roasting, so what are we doing to adjust? Jamaica, Kingston, in particular, will have climate departure — that means every year going forward it gets hotter,” she said.

“These are some critical things that we have to start planning for and I think that is what today was really moving us further forward,” added Mclymount-Lafayette.