“Over 90 Per Cent of Our Members Are Without a Roof”: An Adventist Hospital Takes Relief to Black River After Melissa

• Andrews Memorial Hospital volunteers took care packages to Black River Hospital and nearby communities
• The hospital’s CEO said only about 15 per cent of its usable space remained
• A local Adventist pastor said more than 90 per cent of his members had lost their roofs
• A 70-year-old man whose home was destroyed was staying at a Baptist church

In the days after Hurricane Melissa made landfall on October 28, 2025, a team from Andrews Memorial Hospital (AMH), the Seventh-day Adventist hospital in Kingston, drove to Black River, St Elizabeth. Twenty-five volunteers handed out care packages, hot meals, solar lanterns and clothing to staff at Black River Hospital and to residents nearby, the Gleaner reported.

Black River Hospital’s chief executive, Diana Brown-Williams, described an institution “battered to its core”. “Currently, only about 15 per cent of our usable space remains,” she said. “Roofs are gone. Wards, administration, staff quarters, dietary services, and the operating theatre are out.” AMH president Donmayne Gyles said the hospital would adopt Black River Hospital “as a project as we build together” and would work with Pastor Keisan Jemieson of the Black River District of Seventh-day Adventist Churches.

In the Lovers Lane and Logwood communities, Jemieson said: “Over 90 per cent of our members are without a roof and now sleep in the open air.” Velma Gunter stood under an open sky where her ceiling had been: “We lost the entire roof within an hour and a half.” Nurse Shirleyan Myers, six months pregnant, said her family sheltered in their car when the roof blew off, and that the zinc her husband nailed back still lets the rain in. Karl McDonald, 70, said his entire dwelling was gone and he was staying at a nearby Baptist church with many others.

Assistant chaplain Pastor Eric Nathan told staff, “This is not the act of God. This is the act of the Devil.” SDA Jamaica Union president Pastor Everett Brown said the church, through ADRA, would “do all we can to rebuild their lives”.

The visit shows the scale of the housing emergency in one parish: a hospital running on a fraction of its space, a congregation almost entirely without roofs, and a church building serving as a dormitory for the homeless. Zinc nailed back by hand is a stopgap, not a repair. Rebuilding roofs properly, with fastenings designed for hurricane winds, and getting families back into secure homes are the long jobs. Churches, which often have the only sturdy buildings in a district, are carrying much of the load in the meantime.

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