Tufton, Wilson prioritise fixing roadway to Grange Hill clinic
Published:Wednesday | October 11, 2023 | 12:05 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
RESIDENTS OF Grange Hill have been assured that the road leading to their health centre will be fixed as a priority, after more than seven years of complaints. The assurance has come from Morland Wilson, member of parliament for Westmoreland Western, and Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton.
The roadway, which resembles a mud lake and is plagued with gaping holes, serves as the only entry point to the community’s primary healthcare facility. The situation has forced many of the approximately 30,000 residents to trek some 14 kilometres to the Savanna-la-Mar Hospital for medical attention as needed.
“When I turned in to come down here (to the clinic) I was wondering if I was going to the river to catch janga because the road is just bad and I cannot see why anybody walking on the main road and bucking their toe, or falling out of a tree, which is a normal course of life, and a parent or a guardian would stop at the health centre when them look on the road,” said Tufton.
“They are going to go straight to Sav hospital because in looking on, they say nothing good can come down yah so because the road is no introduction to good healthcare,” he said.
Tufton was speaking during the Ministry of Health and Wellness’ Adopt-a-Clinic Programme, where Kadeen Mairs and the Mairs Family Office committed $5 million to adopt the Grange Hill Health Centre over the next five years.
Acknowledging the poor state of the road, the minister promised that it would be repaired as soon as possible.
“Don’t blame your MP; he has been advocating for the road’s repair, and we will repair it,” Tufton promised.
He informed that the National Works Agency (NWA) has already scoped the work and submitted quotations.
“In fact, I said to Mr E.G. Hunter (chief executive officer, NWA) on the phone while I was sitting there, that we have the estimate. It’s a little more than what we have allocated, if we have to give a little more and you give a little, I want it fixed as a priority,” he said.
Wilson noted that whenever he visits the Grange Hill clinic, the most pressing and persistent need is for repairs to the road. He said that since his election as member of parliament he has constantly been reprimanded by the nurses, the matron and the general public on the condition of the road.
“Funds were allocated under a new programme and some $2 million was allocated towards the rehabilitation of the roadway, so in short order we will see repair work being conducted,” Wilson said.
“The state where it is at now is that the NWA has done their assessment, the costing is coming out a bit more than the funds we have so we are looking and hoping for partnership, and with the adoption of this clinic we are hoping that this partnership will bolster the resources that I have already obtained for the repair of the roadway,” he said.
Stafford Morrison, a member of the Grange Hill Apostolic Church, which is located on the same road as the clinic, claims that the church continually patches the road and cannot afford the expense required to continue doing so.
“What he [Dr Tufton] said has just gone through one ear and come out the other because I have heard so many promises before and nothing yet,” explained Morrison, who works as a custodian at the church.
He voiced fears that this could be just another promise, and that if it were not for the church it (the road) would be worse.
“We have to use the marl from the church to make it look like it is now,” Morrison said.
“Every six months someone arrives with a measuring tape claiming that they will fix it,” he continued. “It’s been five years that it’s been in this deplorable condition and people keep promising that they will fix it.”