KINGSTON, Jamaica — Five years after launching, the specialized urology department at Jamaica’s public Spanish Town Hospital has emerged as a critical regional care hub, closing in on a major professional milestone: nearly 1,500 completed surgical procedures for patients across St Catherine and adjacent parishes. What began as a small targeted service has rapidly expanded access to life-saving urological treatment that once required long, costly travel for local residents.
First established on May 3, 2021, the unit has not only delivered surgical care but also treated thousands of patients through outpatient services, earning its place as one of the nation’s top public-sector urology centers, per an official statement released Friday by the hospital.
Dr. Elon Thompson, consultant urologist and founding head of the service, emphasized that the five-year achievement is the product of collective effort across the entire facility’s healthcare team. “This milestone belongs to an entire team of committed healthcare professionals who have worked tirelessly to improve access to specialised urological care for the people of St Catherine and beyond,” Thompson noted in the official release.
Over its five years of operation, the unit has notched a series of progressive clinical firsts that demonstrate its growing technical capacity. In January 2022, the team completed the hospital’s first ever radical cystectomy — a complex, high-stakes procedure that removes cancerous bladder tissue to treat urological cancer. Just 20 months later, in September 2023, the hospital performed its first laparoscopic nephrectomy, pushing the unit’s ability to offer minimally invasive surgical options that reduce patient risk and recovery time.
The department has also prioritized addressing one of the most common urological cancers in the region: it has carried out more than 150 prostate cancer-focused procedures to date, including curative radical prostatectomies that eliminate early-stage cancer from patients.
Most recently, in July 2025, the unit upgraded its technical capabilities with the acquisition of a new surgical laser system. The equipment enables minimally invasive kidney stone procedures, expanding the range of treatments available to local patients while cutting recovery periods and boosting overall surgical success rates.
For residents of St Catherine and surrounding communities, the growth of the on-site urology service has eliminated a major barrier to care. Prior to the department’s launch, local patients often had to travel long distances to larger urban centers to access even basic specialized urological treatment, a burden that added cost, stress, and delay to care. The service has now drastically reduced that need, bringing high-quality specialty care closer to home.
Looking forward, the urology team has laid out clear goals for continued growth: expanding access to additional advanced urological procedures, creating more hands-on training opportunities for emerging healthcare professionals in the field, and steadily improving patient outcomes across the entire region.
“While we are proud of what has been accomplished, our work is far from complete. We remain committed to building on these achievements and ensuring that the people we serve continue to have access to high-quality, modern urological care close to home,” Thompson said.