Tufton defends hip-roof design for Portmore Health Centre expansion
Published:Friday | January 30, 2026 | 12:08 AMRuddy Mathison/Gleaner Writer
Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton has defended the decision to install a hip roof on the expanding wing of the Greater Portmore Health Centre, a $660-million project, amid concerns about its resilience to extreme weather.
He was responding to questions from Member of Parliament for St Catherine Southern, Fitz Jackson, during a tour of the facility on Wednesday. Jackson cited damage sustained during Hurricane Melissa and queried whether the roof could withstand a Category -5 storm.
While acknowledging he was not an engineer, Dr Tufton insisted the design aligns with the ministry’s wider resilience strategy. “Our resilient plan and smart health facility used appropriate engineering to appreciate all the elements of the construction including the roof,” he said, adding that no structure is immune to extreme weather.
Concrete slab roofs, he noted, are hardly infallible. “Even concrete slab roofs leak, something I have seen with some facilities especially in Savanna-la-Mar,” he said.
The minister also sought to correct what he described as a widespread misunderstanding of hurricane resilience. “There is a misconception that a roof has to be slab to withstand a Category-5 hurricane but that’s not the case,” he said.
“In fact there are many that withstood even a Category-5 hurricane in the hurricane belt; the hip roof appropriately placed can withstand hurricane force winds and it is so designed to do so, but beyond that it offers additional benefit, the cooling,” Tufton added.
Once completed, the expansion is expected to significantly boost healthcare delivery in fast-growing Portmore, which is under consideration for parish status. “The Greater Portmore Health Centre when completed will be like a mini hospital,” Tufton said, noting that the new and existing facilities together will provide more than 200 square feet of space.
“In a sense this will be like a mini hospital, except that we don’t have in-patient care, because we have labs, diagnostic, more doctors, and more specialisation, and this is exactly what we want – a one-stop shop to do a number of things, serve the people of Portmore,” he added.
The upgraded centre will offer services including X-ray, oral hydration, isolation facilities, treatment and procedure rooms, an asthma bay, diabetic retinopathy screening, physiotherapy and dedicated examination rooms. It will be elevated from a Type 3 to a Type 5 comprehensive health facility.
Wednesday’s tour was attended by several stakeholders, including Aniceto Rodriguez Ruiz, head of cooperation at the Delegation of the European Union in Jamaica. The EU is the project’s main funder through an investment grant.
The expansion forms part of the Government of Jamaica’s Health Systems Strengthening Programme, aimed at modernising public healthcare infrastructure.