Relief coming for Old Harbour firefighters, says McKenzie

THE TECHNICAL Services Division of the Ministry of Local Government is reviewing plans submitted by the Jamaica Fire Brigade for the construction of a fire station on lands it owns near to the Old Harbour town centre in St Catherine.

This was disclosed by the ministry in a press release last evening as it responded to a Gleaner exposé yesterday detailing the plight of roughly 30 firefighters forced to work in filthy conditions at a rented house, which is sometimes flooded by raw sewage.

Conditions at the retrofitted building are so bad that women cannot be accommodated due to the limited bathroom and bedroom space.

Yesterday, Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie said that plans are in place to address the fundamental issues at the station, but failed to provide any specifics or timeline.

The firefighters complained to The Gleaner that they frequently had “to contend with an irrepressible faecal odour, sleeping with a cesspit under the same roof, and routinely having to run for cover from sewage overflow”.

McKenzie said the issue with the sewage pit emerged in May and that the leadership of the Jamaica Fire Brigade had made arrangements with the owner of the property to build a new sewage pit, and this was done and put into service last week.

“I am sensitive to these issues of functionality and dignity, and I want to assure them that our policy involves the improvement of the people as well as the systems of our fire services,” the minister was quoted as saying in the release. “The reality of this situation is that the commissioner and his team searched diligently for over one year to find a place to use on a temporary basis, and that is why the current location was moved into at the end of last year.”