An MRI, a Cath Lab and a Five-Year Plan: The Adventist-Run Andrews Memorial Hospital Invests at 80

• Andrews Memorial Hospital, run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, marked 80 years in 2025
• It added an MRI service in January 2025 and a cardiac catheterisation service
• It is pursuing Joint Commission International accreditation over four to five years
• Compliance rose from 15 per cent to 33 per cent during 2024

Church institutions in Jamaica are not only chapels and schools. At 27 Hope Road in St Andrew stands Andrews Memorial Hospital, operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which marked its 80th anniversary in 2025. In July that year the Jamaica Observer’s executive editor, Vernon Davidson, reported on the hospital’s plans to modernise.

The hospital had added two major diagnostic services: an MRI unit, launched in January 2025, and a cardiac catheterisation service, supporting new cardiac and stroke programmes, with a critical care programme planned.

It was also working towards accreditation by Joint Commission International, a US-based healthcare quality body, a process begun on April 8, 2024 that involves meeting about 1,000 measurable elements. More than 100 policies had been introduced, and compliance rose from 15 per cent at the start of 2024 to 33 per cent by the end of the year. “We have agreed that this is a four- to five-year journey. We have put plans in place along the journey to add services, add infrastructural changes to improve that quality,” said president and CEO Donmayne Gyles. He acknowledged the difficulty: “with every culture shift it gets worse before it gets better.”

Chief medical officer Dr Francene Gayle stressed the basics: “Every single health-care worker should wash their hands after every single contact with every single patient, every single time.” The hospital’s plan rests on five pillars: people, service quality, operational efficiency, brand growth and financial stability.

The story shows a denomination investing in property and equipment for the long term on a prime Hope Road site. Church-owned hospitals, schools and campuses are some of Jamaica’s most valuable faith-based assets, and they need steady capital investment to stay useful. For Adventists and other supporters in the diaspora, and for returning residents weighing healthcare options, an internationally accredited church hospital in Kingston would be a significant asset.

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