AMID fears that storm-damaged clinics could quietly disappear from some of the worst-affected communities after Hurricane Melissa, health officials are reassuring Jamaicans that no clinic damaged by the hurricane will be abandoned.

Senior officials from the Ministry of Health and Wellness moved this week to quell public anxiety that the destruction left by Hurricane Melissa could lead to the permanent closure of small rural clinics, particularly in parishes that bore the brunt of the storm.

Speaking at the Jamaica Observer Press Club on Monday, the ministry acknowledged the scale of damage to primary health-care facilities, but stressed that the recovery process is being guided by restoration, expansion and long-term resilience — not withdrawal from communities.

Hurricane Melissa, which battered sections of the island in late October, caused widespread damage to homes, roads and public infrastructure, including health centres that form the backbone of Jamaica’s primary health-care system.

According to Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton, of the island’s 325 health centres, 105 were located within the hurricane’s impact zone, with approximately 25 sustaining severe damage.

The scale of that damage, however, has fuelled public concern about whether some of the most affected facilities will return.

Addressing those fears directly, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health and Wellness Errol C Greene said the Government has no intention of abandoning any clinic, even as it reassesses how some facilities operate going forward.

“But we have had discussions with the minister, CMO [chief medical officer] and the team, and we’ve been looking at the feasibility of some of our clinics. Some have to be expanded, some we’ll have to look at the suitability of some of them, where they’re located, [and] the population that they serve,” he said.

In the meantime, Greene said access to health care has been maintained through temporary measures, including mobile clinics and pharmacies, particularly in communities where buildings remain severely damaged.

“I spoke earlier about the mobile clinics and the mobile pharmacies, that we have to reach those areas that the clinics are destroyed. I personally have been to clinics in St Elizabeth that most of the roof is gone, but the staff, the doctors, nurses, everybody’s there, and they’re seeing patients,” he said.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Jacquiline Bisasor-McKenzie reinforced that assurance, emphasising that restoration is the baseline response across the system, with expansion already planned for select facilities.

“The intention at this point is to repair all the clinics that have been damaged, and we are building back better. For certain selected health centres on the primary health care reform, we are incorporating the expansion that is needed to those clinics with the refurbishing that needs to be done post the hurricane,”she said.

She said clinics earmarked for upgrades under the ministry’s primary health-care reform programme will not only be restored, but strengthened.

Santa Cruz Health Centre withstood the strong winds of Hurricane Melissa

BISASOR-MCKENZIE…the intention at this point is to repair all the clinics that have been damaged.

A section of the Hanover Health Department that lost its roof during Hurricane Melissa.