Eventide Home Fire in Jamaica - Barbara Nelson
Eventide Home Fire in Jamaica - Barbara Nelson
Eventide is the most tragic display of human neglect our country has ever known. Let us never repeat it again.” These are the words of Father Richard Ho Lung, founder of the Roman Catholic Charity “Missionaries of the Poor”. “Eventide is the most tragic display of human neglect our country has ever known. Let us never repeat it again.”
“We all don’t get wealthy, travel the world, sit with kings or eat the finest food in our lifetime…..but in a lifetime we ALL get old.” This statement from Jamaican writer, radio host and actor Rodney Campbell.
In an article published in May 2015, Rodney Campbell wrote “One hundred and forty-four charred bodies of elderly women were removed from beneath the rubble in the wee hours of the morning of May 20, 1980 after a fire completely destroyed the Myers Ward at the Eventide Home for the Aged on Slipe Pen Road in Kingston.”
This (photo) was what I saw that morning in May when I went to report on the fire that destroyed the Eventide Home. The sight was distressing, but the overpowering smell of burning flesh was even worse. Scattered among the burnt lumber, sheets of zinc and metal rods I saw some personal items – a part of a faded floral dress, a lone brown shoe, a tin cup – lost and crying out for their owners.
The Eventide Home was opened in Jamaica on July 1, 1870. At that time Jamaica was a British crown colony. The Home was a wooden building constructed specifically to house elderly women. As time passed, however, destitute crippled and handicapped old men and children were also placed there along with the elderly women. In the first year that Eventide existed about 160 old women lived there -this information comes from an article written by Daive Dunkley in the Jamaica National Heritage Trust.
Was the destruction of the Home and the gruesome death of poor, old Jamaican women a political act?
An article by the Associated Press (AP) in the Toledo Blade newspaper of May 20, 1980 quoted Prime Minister Michael Manley as saying, “first reports from the security forces indicate strongly that this may have been the work of arsonists.”
The article continued: “Firemen said they responded within minutes after getting the first call but that enormous flames were leaping from the home when they arrived. They said much of the one story, wood and concrete structure collapsed as they arrived.”
May 26, 1980 was declared by then Prime Minister Michael Manley a Day of National mourning for Jamaica.
Although there were suggestion that restructuring of the Eventide Home should take place at Slipe Pen Road, after some months it became clear that Central Government was not in favor of restructuring.
On October 7, 1982 “a company was registered in the name of Golden Age Home Ltd.” There were nine members “known for their public spiritedness and capacity for hard work.” These people began the work of charting the course to the construction of a new Golden Age Home, a decent place for the elderly destitute. The site selected was 3 St. Joseph’s Avenue in Kingston 3.
On April 11, 1985 the new Golden Age Home was officially opened. It is the largest infirmary in Jamaica and the Caribbean and can accommodate almost 500 residents.
Comments
Post a Comment