Authur Green, Gleaner Writer
YALLAHS, St. Thomas:
A CALL has been made by Councillor Beresford Steel of the Dalvey division of the St. Thomas Parish Council for something to be done to have more doctors assigned to the parish.
"For sometime now, St. Thomas has had to do without the services of full-time doctors at the various medical facilities across the parish and this is not an acceptable situation," said the veteran local government official at the local board of health meeting in Morant Bay, last Thursday.
In recent times, the medical officer of health for the parish, Dr. Yvonne Munroe, was reported to have had some discussions with the Southeast Regional Health Authorities (SERHA) with a view to make available more medical practitioners to serve the parish, but those talks have not yielded any positive results.
Mr. Steele was supported by Councillor Rosemarie Shaw in calling for very urgent attention to be paid to the critical medical needs of residents in the parish. Councillor Steele contends that "an unhealthy nation cannot be productive, the relevant authorities must take immediate steps in making sure that nobody else dies in the parish because they were not seen by a doctor".
He told the meeting that too often he has had to bury constituents, who died owing to a lack of medical attention.
At the same time, Dr. Munroe said she continued to be hopeful that something will be done soon to increase the cadre of doctors in the parish; noting that although currently two are assigned, on many occasions, only one is available at any given time.
