Children's advocate to probe home safety

Nadisha Hunter, Staff Reporter

Children's advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison says her office will be investigating reports that there is a deficiency in proper safety measures in place for children housed at the Maxfield Park Children's Home in Kingston.

During a tour of the facility recently, Mayor of Kingston Lee Clarke took issue with the physical condition of the building, the lack of a resident nurse and the absence of fire extinguishers with the one fire hydrant in place malfunctioning.

"It is something that I will seek to raise with the relevant persons to have some kind of resolution to these issues," Gordon Harrison said yesterday.

She said she was concerned about the issue as anything that is not compliant with certain basic standards and expectations could adversely affect the welfare of children.

"Certainly, my approach is that you don't wait until something happens, you have to take a proactive approach because you are talking about the safety of children," she stressed.

At the same time, the Child Development Agency noted that with no board in place since 2005 to generate additional funds for the institution, it was difficult to maintain the facility.

Infrastructural work

However, the agency said the residential childcare facilities do undertake routine maintenance periodically but some require more extensive infrastructural work.

Clarke said the breakdown in security measures could be detrimental to the children's safety and so it should be treated as an emergency situation.

"I will be writing to the ministry in charge (health) regarding the physical conditions of the property, the lack of fire hydrants and fire protection units at the facility, how they distribute keys for security in the nights and the structural competence of some of the buildings," he said.

"So we will be giving a detailed report to the ministry and we will be following up on it."

nadisha.hunter@gleanerjm.com