“Our Next Door Neighbours Asked Us for Help”: Adventists Open Their Conference Centre to a Crippled Hospital

• Noxious fumes forced Cornwall Regional Hospital to move services off its three lower floors
• The Seventh-day Adventist West Jamaica Conference centre next door took in dialysis, lab and clinic services
• Eighteen dialysis units were set up in a dedicated building
• The church delayed its own skills centre launch by about six months

In February 2017 a crisis at one of Jamaica’s biggest hospitals found an answer next door, on church property. The Jamaica Observer reported that noxious fumes from the old ventilation system at Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay had forced services off the three lower floors of the 10-storey building.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church’s West Jamaica Conference, based in Mount Salem, opened its conference centre. According to the Observer, it accommodated 18 dialysis units in a dedicated building, laboratory services, the antenatal clinic and the physiotherapy department, with several stations set up in the church auditorium.

Pastor Glen Samuels, president of the West Jamaica Conference, explained what it cost the church. “The launch of our Skills Centre Programmes, we have to push that back for at least another six months for the simple reason our next door neighbours, the Cornwall Regional Hospital, has asked us for help,” he said.

Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton said the government had decided the ventilation system had to be replaced. “The days of trying to repair it are over,” he said. Until that work was done, patients who needed dialysis, tests and antenatal care would be treated on church premises rather than in the hospital itself.

The episode shows how much practical value church property can have in a crisis: buildings designed for conferences and training became clinics almost overnight, and a denomination put its own plans on hold to serve the public. For churches, it is an argument for keeping large facilities flexible, well maintained and properly insured. For Jamaicans in the diaspora who give to denominational building projects, it is a reminder that a church centre in Montego Bay or Mandeville can end up serving patients and families far beyond the congregation.

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