Prime Minister Mia Mottley has promised persons living in rural parishes suffering water outages that Government will solve the issue.
In fact, she has promised that relief will be coming in a matter of weeks for those residents in St Joseph plagued by dry taps.
Addressing the official re-opening of the St Joseph Outpatient Clinic in Horse Hill this morning, Mottley said the construction of a new reservoir at Castle Grant was scheduled to be completed within the next four to six months and residents therefore would not have to wait that long for water relief.
“There was a problem with garbage and it was solved. There was a problem with buses and it was solved. There was a problem with access to medical services and it has been solved. There is a problem with water and it will be solved,” the Prime Minister promised.
“Access to water doesn’t await the construction of that new reservoir because the water from Vineyard to Mount Pleasant goes to Golden Ridge and will come up here and I’ve told the residents of St Joseph while I’ve heard all kinds of dates, it is my judgment that by the end of July that project, based on all we have done, will be completed, if not before,” Mottley said.
“But more importantly we don’t have to wait for that because what we are doing and hopefully within two weeks we should have the three million gallons from the Ionics plant that has been out of commission since September last year.
The country’s leader also said rural parishes will continue to benefit from a variety of decentralised services.
She said residents would be provided with housing opportunities, adequate garbage disposal and transportation and accessibility to medical services.
“The decentralization of services is all fundamentally about prevention and it is to that that I want this country to start to recognize and to literally apply itself to…
“This Government made it clear that what matters to us is the delivery of effective and efficient services to our people, but regrettably it is not only as simple as building a building or refurbishing a building. It also requires a mindset that allows us to understand that the people who deliver the services must be given the requisite training, must have the appropriate knowledge, but must equally have the appropriate attitude,” the Prime Minister pointed out during her feature address.
“This country is not about a decentralized, heavily urbanized environment, but it is one about holistic development from St Lucy to St Philip, from St James to St Thomas to St Joseph, and I give you the commitment as Prime Minister of this nation, that as long as this Government is in office we will continue on the journey of the decentralization of services, bringing services to you the people of St Joseph, to you the people of St Andrew, to you the people of St Lucy, to you the people of St John, to you the people of St Peter, to you the people of St Philip, to you the people of St Thomas, to the people of St George which is more suburban than it has ever been in recent times.”
Speaking specifically to the re-opening of the outpatient clinic, Minister of Health and Wellness Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic said it had been plagued with environmental issues which led to its closure last March.
He said Government was dedicated to providing quality healthcare to Barbadians.
“We are aware that the delivery of quality and affordable healthcare services to Barbadians is a task that cannot be postponed…It is our goal at the Ministry of Health and Wellness to improve efficiency and the performance of health systems to make healthcare more available, accessible and affordable to our citizens and in their communities,” Bostic said.
Bostic said a date had not yet been decided on when the clinic would open to the public.
Attorney General and member of Parliament for St Joseph, Dale Marshall said he was pleased to see the medical facility re-open at double the size.
He said far too often, rural communities were forgotten.
“It is a constant complaint of rural Barbados that we seem not to get a fair share of the country’s bounty. Our roads are often allowed to fall into disrepair, bus services are often not frequent and this building was a constant reminder of what appeared to be neglect and disinterest,” Marshall said.
He said he was relieved to know that residents would no longer have to seek medical services at the Gall Hill Polyclinic in St John, which sometimes required some residents to catch two buses to get there. (randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)
