Workmen prepare to provide water to the Kingston Public and Victoria Jubilee hospitals in Kingston yesterday. - Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer

Water resources have receded to crucially low levels in the busy downtown commercial district, forcing trucks to be rushing with the critical commodity to the Kingston Public and Victoria Jubilee hospitals.

The trucks had been delivering water to the institution for more than a week, but the situation has worsened over the past two days, precipitating increased action by the National Water Commission (NWC).

Chairman of the South East Health Regional Authority, Lyttleton 'Tanny' Shirley, told The Gleaner he has been in talks with the NWC to truck water to the institutions.

Shirley said the NWC has been dispatching at least two truckloads of water to the hospitals daily.

"The NWC is appreciative of our situation and has been quite cooperative," Shirley asserted.

He disclosed that senior managers of both institutions have been busily knocking heads in meetings to craft strategies aimed at addressing the problems.

Chief executive officer of the KPH/VJH, Godfrey Boyd, and his senior officers were reportedly locked in a meeting all day when The Gleaner sought to ascertain how the institutions were coping.

Shirley said that over the past 48 hours, a number of short-term measures have been implemented to prevent any severe dislocations in the hospitals' operations.

Health Minister Ruddy Spencer told The Gleaner that he was closely monitoring the situation.

Critically low

Residents of the communities located close to the two hospitals told The Gleaner that the water supply had reached critically low levels since Wednesday night.

Staff members of the hospital and the people who live in the west Kingston locale said the pipes were barely dripping.

The situation has also reached crisis proportions in the Maxfield and Waltham Park communities, with residents being forced to sit and wait on unscheduled water trucks along the major thoroughfares.

The health clinic and numerous educational institutions in and around these communities have been hard hit.

Many of the schools are equipped with water tanks, but these are also running critically low.

"We have not had water for more than three weeks, long before many were talking about water shortage," a mother of two told The Gleaner.

A teacher at Norman Manley High School said the institution was coping well.

The taps at the St Peter Claver Primary School have run dry, forcing the administration to employ creative means to keep water in a tank and the school open to its students.

However, this has proven to be severely challenging for the young students as the product has had to be conserved for long periods at times.

gary.spaulding@gleanerjm.com