Residents of St John’s Rural South in Antigua are now receiving complimentary temporary transportation to reach their relocated medical appointments, after major renovation work at a key local clinic upended routine access to care. Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) candidate and sitting Education Minister Daryll Matthew made the announcement during a recent interview on ABS Television’s popular public affairs segment “Know Your Candidates”.
The disruption stems from ongoing structural repairs to the Browns Avenue Clinic, the primary primary care provider for most residents of the constituency, Matthew explained. All clinical services previously offered at the Browns Avenue location have been temporarily moved to the Harberton Hospital campus, creating unanticipated logistical hurdles for local patients who face added travel burdens to reach their care.
“For the majority of St John’s Rural South residents, Browns Avenue Clinic is their go-to for routine care,” Matthew noted in the interview. “Now that services have shifted to Harberton Hospital, the new travel requirement has proven to be a notable inconvenience for many community members.”
To mitigate this disruption, local representatives rolled out an ad-hoc transportation program that connects eligible patients with rides to and from their medical appointments at the new temporary location. “We have moved quickly to set up this transportation support for any resident that needs help getting to and from their clinical services while repairs are ongoing,” Matthew said.
As of the interview, Matthew did not share specific details on the program’s operating frequency, formal fixed schedule, or eligibility enrollment process, but confirmed the initiative is targeted exclusively at St John’s Rural South residents impacted by the clinic’s service relocation.
The transportation announcement came during a wider conversation about long-term improvements to healthcare access across the constituency, where Matthew also shared details of early-stage planning for a major expanded healthcare facility. He confirmed that government stakeholders have held preliminary discussions to retrofit an existing, underutilized community building into a fully modern, expanded polyclinic that would serve multiple surrounding communities.
If completed, the new facility would cover residents across Ottos, the Browns Avenue district, and all nearby neighboring neighborhoods, filling a longstanding gap in local primary care access. However, Matthew was quick to emphasize that the project remains in early planning stages, with no formal construction timeline set to date.
Two key factors are delaying progress on the polyclinic upgrade: the government’s ongoing commitment to completing renovation projects at other clinics across the country, and persistent systemic staffing shortages that limit how many new facilities can be operationalized.
“Every new clinic or expanded facility that we open requires additional clinical staff: more nurses, more doctors, and more support personnel to keep it running,” Matthew explained. “Right now, we are facing a national shortage of nurses, so we have to balance our expansion goals against the human resources we actually have available.”
For the foreseeable future, Matthew confirmed that the government’s top priority remains ensuring uninterrupted access to essential care for St John’s Rural South residents while the Browns Avenue Clinic repairs are completed. The temporary transportation program will remain in place as a stopgap measure to reduce patient burden through the duration of the renovation work.