No lack of resources, but skewed priorities

Noel Thompson, Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU

For years, there has been a common belief among Jamaicans that Jamaica's emergency services are staggeringly ill-equipped to handle situations in the event a major disaster should hit the island.

At a Gleaner Editors' Forum held at the Rose Hall Resort and Spa in Montego Bay last Thursday, that concern was raised with Ronald Jackson, the director general in the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), and Dr Barbara Carby, director of the Disaster Risk Reduction Centre at the University of the West Indies.

Jackson and Carby were among their peers from across the region who were attending the Fifth Annual Caribbean Conference on Comprehensive Disaster Management.

It was suggested that, collectively, Jamaica's emergency services was less than one per cent capable of handling a mid-range to a major catastrophic situation.

"Are we ready, in terms of the equipment and the resources that are at our disposal? That is not a secret. We know that our first responders, who are the fire services and the Ministry of Health, are without some critical pieces of equipment that would make them effective and that would play out in the scheme of things when responding to the big event," Jackson admitted.

Community building

He added: "We must never underestimate what can be achieved if we build sound partnerships and co-ordinate the resources. While we wait for Government, corporate Jamaica and NGOs to understand that they have a stake and to begin to invest some of those resources, we must never underestimate the power of building capacity at the community level because that's where the impact occurs first," he emphasised.

Jackson said it was important to get the governance aspect right at the local level by getting mayors, councillors and other stakeholders involved in raising the preparedness level higher.

Dawn French, director of National Disaster Services in St Lucia, speaking broadly, said fire services are prepared for certain levels of hazards.

Carby agreed with French. Examining the credible scenarios that might affect us and how they might be best addressed, Carby said the Caribbean plate is capable of generating up to an 8.3 magnitude earthquake, which is huge, but emphasised that the region does not have the resources to fully prepare for that.

"We would have to decide that if the disaster exceeds the region's preparedness capability, we would have to activate our mutual aid agreements with different countries. A country needs to know what are the different scenarios it could face and then plan accordingly," Carby explained.

She added: "I am tired of hearing that we have a resource or financial constraint. We do not have a money constraint. We have a prioritisation constraint. That is the problem we have with resources."

She criticised the many cost overruns of local projects and is urging the authorities to be more efficient and invest the money where it will make a difference in reducing risks.

noel.thompson@gleanerjm.com