SANDALS FOUNDATION GIFTS APPLIANCES AFTER MELISSA DAMAGE
OCHO RIOS, St Ann; Dec. 28, 2025
The kitchen at St Ann’s Bay Hospital has benefitted from a donation by Sandals Foundation that should improve its ability to support patients’ dietary needs, following damage by Hurricane Melissa.
On Tuesday, December 23, medical and auxiliary staff at the St. Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital were proud to reopen the Dietary Department following the delivery and installation of a suite of kitchen appliances, donated by Sandals Foundation.
These include a restaurant range stove, freezer, and refrigerator, valued at approximately $2-million. The equipment allows for the preparation of some 300 patient meals daily.
(From left, Lyndsay Isaacs, regional public relations manager, and Rodroy Thomas, executive chef at Sandals Ocho, share smiles with Nadine Bell, dietitian, and Dennis Morgan, CEO at the St. Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital, during the handover of the newly donated freezer and refrigerator units at St Ann’s Bay Hospital)
. ‘During the hurricane, we lost the roof of the building that housed our Dietary Department. Since then, we have changed locations and created a new space to serve our patients’ needs,” says Dennis Morgan, CEO at St. Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital.
“The Dietary Department here at the St. Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital is critical because while patients are here to receive medical care, proper nutrition is part of the healing process. A number of people come to our facility because of poor eating habits and are diabetic, and they are not eating properly. We then have to counsel them to eat the right meal and the right portion of that meal, so the dietary department at any health institution is critical to patient care. The Sandals Foundation’s.
(From left, Nadine Bell, dietitian, and Dennis Morgan, chief executive officer at the St. Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital, Rodroy Thomas, executive chef, and Lyndsay Isaacs, regional public relations manager at Sandals Ochi, share a joke during the handover of a restaurant range stove donated by the Sandals Foundation).
donation of both the stove and refrigerators to us to continue that care in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa is so vital, and we are so appreciative of that assistance.”
Meanwhile, the Cornwall Regional Hospital recently received a donation of some 50 mattresses valued at just ove amillion dollars to replace a portion of bedding damaged by the category 5 storm.
Heidi Clarke, Executive Director at the Sandals Foundations, says support to the island’s hospital forms a strategic part of its Hurricane response strategy.
