Twin donors boost staff at UHWI field hospital
Published:Wednesday | October 27, 2021 | 3:40 AM
Moved by the need to pitch in to fight COVID-19, teenage twin brothers from Hillel Academy donated office furniture and sanitary products to the field hospital at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) on Tuesday.
Having been informed by their mother that the nurses’ quarters of the field hospital was in critical need of furniture, William and Alexander Clarke took up the initiative to compose and mail letters to various organisations in the hope of receiving funding.
Approximately six organisations responded to the appeal, including Zoukie Trucking Service Ltd, Stationery and Office Supplies Ltd, and Food For The Poor Jamaica.
The 14-year-olds told The Gleaner that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic spurred them to enlist community assistance in securing stock.
“Sharing is caring,” said William Clarke, while encouraging Jamaicans to pitch in.
Office chairs, an office desk, soap, sanitiser and hand towel dispensers, and adult wheelchairs were gifted to the hospital.
Dr Carl Bruce, medical chief of staff at the UHWI, expressed appreciation for the gesture, stating that it was an example of patriotism.
“On behalf of the hospital ... let me first of all congratulate you. I think what we are seeing demonstrated here today is the ongoing, fine Jamaican tradition of taking care of each other,” he said.
Recalling how, only weeks ago, patients were being treated in the driveway and under the hospital’s undercroft as the third wave of the coronavirus outbreak peaked, Bruce said that staff had battled with finding chairs to accommodate nursing staff.
With a large nurses’ station, Bruce said that the furniture would “come in handy” and that the other supplies would boost the hospital’s sanitisation capacity.
“The situation required that all of us as Jamaicans, as human beings, help those who were sick and less fortunate and so we want to congratulate everyone who was involved in this initiative,” said the medical chief of staff.
The 40-bed field hospital increased the UHWI’s capacity to cope with swelling cases because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The air-conditioned facility, which is equipped with video surveillance for remote monitoring of patients, resuscitation rooms, and a nurses’ station, was handed over in a ceremony late September.
The $50-million private-sector initiative was spearheaded by group CEO of the RJRGLEANER Group, Gary Allen, and Chief Operating Officer Christopher Barnes.