OCHO RIOS, St Ann — Thieves emptied the Claremont Health Centre’s water tank Tuesday night, forcing it to turn away some of those in need of medical care on Wednesday.

“We have suspended services as our backup water supply which would last three days was depleted overnight. We commenced using the supply on the 10th of May and we discovered early this morning that there was no water in the tank,” parish manager for the St Ann Health Department, Nadia Nunes told the Jamaica Observer.

Health-care workers at the centre were disheartened at the turn of events but tried their best to help patients.

“We had to send home some of the patients but we dealt with the cases that were emergencies as best as we could,” said Nunes.

“All of our patients who turned up this morning were understanding of the situation as they are also affected by the water lock-off,” she added.

As they waited Wednesday for National Water Commission (NWC) employees to go back to work, Nunes and her team were also actively trying to find other sources of the commodity.

“We are in the process of contacting private water suppliers to resume services but they are also facing challenges because their supply comes from the NWC source. We have not been able to find a supplier who can access water as yet. We are hoping to find a supplier and that services can be resumed,” said Nunes.

The hope is that patients whose appointments had to be rescheduled will soon be able to visit the centre.

“As soon as we identify a water source our patients will be made aware. There are also a lot of health aides in the area who will get the information out as soon as we resume normal services,” Nunes promised.

Councillor Lambert Weir (People’s National Party, Claremont Division), who decried the theft of the water, warned that there will likely be more cases.

“This also happened to a basic school in Golden Grove. They had a tank filled with water and when they went there it was dry. People went there and drain out everything,” he said.

“This will continue to happen, or even worse, if this water situation is not resolved. NWC can’t have a motto that water is life and you take it away from people, they could have found some other means to state their problems,” he said.