Above: Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Lloyd Smith with cancer survivor Clover Allen Wilson (left) and Davon Crump, president of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JIS Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Jamaica has begun a project to raise funding for the purchase of two state-of-the-art cancer treatment machines.

The goal is to raise J$15 million, or approximately $169,000, for the Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay and a hospital in Kingston.

The “Clover Allen Wilson Power Walk” is a joint initiative of the Rotary Club of Montego Bay, the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Montego Bay chapter of the Jamaica Association of Administrative Professionals.

The programme will see several volunteers walking the distance from Montego Bay to Kingston, raising funds — and awareness — along the way.

Lloyd Smith, the Member of Parliament for Central St James, said he believed Cornwall’s hospital had the potential to become one of the leading medical centres in the Caribbean.

“We have not reached there yet, but we must not give up on that cause,” he said.

The official walk will begin on Oct. 19 in Montego Bay’s Sharpe Square, with the finish line in Kingston’s Emancipation Park on Oct. 21.

The funding would go toward purchasing a pair of “linear accelerators,” some of the latest technological developments in the fight against cancer.