Western hospitals poised to activate water contingency plans

Amid the ongoing industrial action at the National Water Commission (NWC), the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA) says it will have to activate contingency plans if hospitals do not get back regular supply by this evening.

The authority's clinical coordinator, Dr Delroy Fray, told The Gleaner that hospitals in the region, which comprises St James, Westmoreland, Trelawny and Hanover, usually have two days' worth of water in storage in case of a failure with the regular supply.

“If the water does not come back today it will pose a challenge to us. What we did this morning, we made arrangements with some water trucks so that if by this evening we don't see anything happen, we are going to fill up our storage tanks. That can keep us for another two days,” said Fray.

Concerning health centres, Fray said he received a report that two such facilities in Hanover and one in St James had already made similar arrangements for water storage on Wednesday morning.

On Tuesday, more than 2,000 NWC workers walked off the job in protest over an outstanding reclassification exercise which has been unsettled since 2008.

Over 500,000 NWC customers islandwide have been impacted as a result of the action of the workers.

Meanwhile, the water disruption affected today's handling of new cases at
the St James Parish Court as defendants in custody were not taken to court.

Several schools and businesses in the parish have also been affected by the lack of water.

- Christopher Thomas 

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