A team of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare medical practitioners has been in Jamaica since September 6, visiting underserved communities across the island, where they have been providing medical services to those in need.
Led by Dr Robert Clarke, the medical mission, which will be in Jamaica until September 14, has so far visited communities in Kingston, Manchester, St Catherine, and St Thomas.
At the Jamaica Evangelistic Centre on Waltham Park Road in St Andrew, where the team saw and treated some 400 persons, 65-year-old Maleoca Lee was among those seen.
“I am so happy that the team is here providing us with free medical service because we have a distance to travel to the clinic to see the doctor,” she told The Gleaner.
Lee was checked for high blood pressure, diabetes, and other ailments and provided with medication, free of cost.
Lee said she heard about the medical mission through her church and had to make time to be there to see the doctors.
“I had to come to see the doctors,” she said.
TEAM APPRECIATED
Lee noted that her blood pressure was very high, and she was given medication to treat the condition.
She expressed her appreciation to the medical team and said she was given medication that will last her a year.
Ninety-four-year-old Lloyd Hinds was another patient seen by the medical team at the church centre.
He told The Gleaner that he was checked for various conditions, including high blood pressure, diabetes, hypertension, as well as for pain in his back and shoulder.
Hinds pointed out that he was examined and given medication to treat his various ailments, medication that will also last him a year.
“I am so happy that the medical mission came to our community as I was able to be treated for several pains that I have been experiencing,” he told The Gleaner.
But health screenings were not confined merely to the elderly.
Several students who needed to have medical examinations done for back-to-school purposes were also treated by the medical team.
The sessions start around 10 in the mornings and go on until the last patient has been seen.
Clarke said there was no set time to end the sessions, which conclude only when the last person waiting to be seen is examined.
DECADE-LONG WORK
The 25-member health mission, drawn from New York and New Jersey, has already visited four parishes, with another four to be visited before the conclusion of the mission.
Clarke, chief medical adviser for the Northeast Diaspora, said the health mission was under the auspices of Health Jamaica Medical Mission, which has been doing healthcare missions in Jamaica since 2010.
He pointed out that the organisation has provided medical assistance to approximately 462,000 patients over the past decade.
Clarke, with the assistance of Dr Rudolph Willis, founded the Help Jamaica Medical Mission with the aim of providing healthcare services to Jamaicans in need.
He emphasised that the team comprises volunteer specialist doctors and nurses from the TRIE areas of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.
Clarke said the mission has been dedicated to providing free, high-quality healthcare services to those in desperate need, having served thousands of Jamaicans over the years.