标签： Jamaica

Jamaica’s mental health community is mourning the loss of one of its most influential figures, prominent consultant psychiatrist Dr. Aggrey Irons, who died at the age of 74. Multiple sources familiar with the matter confirm Irons passed away on a Saturday evening, according to confirmation obtained by Observer Online.

Over a medical career spanning decades, Irons left an indelible mark on Jamaica’s public health landscape. For more than 20 years, he held the position of senior medical officer at Bellevue Hospital, one of the island nation’s leading public health facilities for psychiatric care. During his tenure, he earned widespread respect from colleagues and patients alike for his compassionate approach to treatment and his unwavering commitment to expanding access to mental health support across the country.

Beyond his clinical work, Irons was a towering figure in Jamaica’s broader medical community. He rose to the presidency of the Medical Association of Jamaica, where he advocated for improved working conditions for medical professionals and stronger public health policies for all Jamaicans. He also dedicated his time to public health prevention efforts, serving as the former chairman of the Jamaica Coalition for Tobacco Control, leading the organization’s work to reduce tobacco use and tobacco-related illness across the island.

Throughout his decades of service, Irons distinguished himself as more than a medical practitioner: he was a tireless public health advocate who used his platform to lift up issues that were often overlooked, from expanding mental health awareness to curbing the harms of tobacco use. Tributes are expected to pour in from across Jamaica’s medical, public health, and political communities in the coming days as colleagues and loved ones remember his decades of service.

MONTREAL, Canada – One of Canada’s most high-profile annual motorsports events, the Canadian Formula 1 Grand Prix, became the backdrop for a historic labor and rights demonstration this year, as dozens of Montreal-based sex workers launched a coordinated strike to push for systemic changes to working conditions and national sex work policy.

For months, 10-year-old Nicholi Smith held tightly to one simple, heartfelt birthday wish: to stand at his mother Natalie Dobson’s graveside, speak to her just as he did when she was alive, and mark his 10th year in her presence. What should have been a tender, healing moment at Jamaica’s Dovecot Memorial Park and Crematory last Tuesday instead dissolved into heartbreak, leaving the boy sobbing and unable to fulfill the only wish he asked for. Now, the family’s devastating experience has sparked widespread public outcry over the disrespectful treatment of deceased loved ones at the St Catherine-based burial ground.

Nicholi’s wish was born from profound grief. Dobson, a beloved mother of five who had shared 22 years with Rupert Smith, Nicholi’s father, died in December 2025 at age not disclosed, from a fungal infection linked to her asthma inhaler. Just days after Dobson’s January 2026 funeral, Nicholi told his family the only thing he wanted for his 10th birthday was a trip to his mother’s grave. He turned down toys, new clothes, and even a birthday party—all he wanted was to be at her final resting place.

“He’s a Taurus, so he was not going to forget just like that. He told me, he told his grandmother and his aunt that’s what he wants — to go visit his mom for his birthday. He never said he wanted anything else,” Rupert Smith shared in an interview with the Jamaica Observer. “It mash me up wicked. After I calmed him down, I said, ‘See your mother wreath here, talk to her.’ He hissed his teeth and said he doesn’t want to talk to her that way, he wants to know for sure he is right where her grave is so that he can say, ‘Yes, she is right here.’ He said speaking to the wreath is not her, it’s just a photo.”

When the pair arrived at the cemetery, they made a devastating discovery: all the plot markers marking individual grave sites had been uprooted by construction workers digging new graves, and left piled haphazardly on the ground. A wreath holding Dobson’s portrait, placed at her grave earlier by the family, lay half-buried in dirt nearby, but there was no way to confirm the exact spot where she was buried. Rupert Smith captured the moment on camera, and the viral video shows him brushing dirt off the wilted wreath while expressing his frustration, before panning to a confused, heartbroken Nicholi, who breaks down into tears when he realizes his wish will not come true.

After leaving the cemetery, Nicholi sat silent for the entire ride home, and burst into inconsolable tears as soon as the pair walked through their front door. Speaking to the Sunday Observer, the 10-year-old said he just wanted to tell his mother how much he missed her.

“I miss her smile, her kindness, and her love,” Nicholi said. “She always took care of me when I was sick and was always there for me. They need to put back the things in the ground so that we can find her and take care of her. I hope to visit my mother every year for my birthday.”

Rupert Smith, who described Dobson as a woman of extraordinary kindness who welcomed and raised his three children from previous relationships as her own, said the cemetery’s neglectful treatment of her grave is a fundamental violation of the basic respect owed to the deceased. He noted that families pay the cemetery to care for their loved ones’ final resting places, and that returning visitors deserve to be able to find the sites without unnecessary pain.

“She was the best mom ever. She always puts her kids first, and she even takes care of my kids,” Smith said. “In Jamaica a lot of women nah go accept a man that have kids outside the relationship and make them come live with them and take care of them as their own, but she was different from everybody else, trust me. She deserved to be laid to rest with respect. Them nuh care. She is dead, yes, but at least she should die with some respect, because people pay unnu to do that. They can’t just say them done dead and gone so unnu don’t care what happen after the people dem gone. That’s not right.”

Since the video was posted to social media, it has sparked widespread discussion of poor cemetery maintenance across Jamaica, with dozens of viewers sharing their own stories of being unable to locate loved ones’ graves due to lost or discarded markers. Smith said the outpouring of shared experience confirms the issue is systemic, and that cemetery leadership needs to implement new protocols to ensure grounds crew prioritize the needs of returning visitors.

“It’s a business for them, but we are the customers, and so they must know that customers come first,” Smith stressed. “You can’t treat customers that way. People nah go want to do business with you if they know that they have their loved ones and they can’t carry them to you knowing that you are going to do what you are supposed to do so that when they come back they can say, ‘This is where such and such buried.’ The supervisors need to speak with the grounds people and make them know that it’s not all the time people a guh bury their loved ones and don’t come back. You a guh have people who a guh come back and look for their loved ones, so they have to bear that in mind. You have people who come back and look for their loved ones, and it a guh painful to know that they can’t find them… It’s not supposed to happen that way.”

Multiple attempts to get comment from Dovecot Memorial Park management have so far gone unanswered, with a representative saying the authorized spokesperson was unavailable to provide a statement as of press time.

For most parents, a child’s first birthday marks a joyous milestone of growth and new beginnings. For Peta-Gaye Forbes Robinson, a Jamaican mother based in Kingston, that celebration was quickly followed by an unsettling turn that would reshape the course of her entire family’s life. Just two months after her son Shadrach turned one, the toddler who had already mastered reciting the full alphabet and counting to 20 suddenly lost nearly all his verbal skills, reduced only to forcing out the single letter “E”.

Alarmed by the obvious developmental regression and repeated concerns from loved ones that Shadrach was not hitting key growth markers, Robinson sought medical evaluation immediately. After months of waiting for a assessment with a behavioural specialist, there was no clear path forward. It was not until Shadrach turned three that a formal neurological diagnosis delivered a devastating blow: the young boy was non-verbal autistic, medical professionals told the couple, and he would never speak, requiring 24/7 lifelong care.

Robinson, however, refused to accept this grim prognosis. With a professional background in early childhood education, she began diving deep into autism research to better understand her son’s condition and explore every possible intervention. At the time, she held a demanding corporate role that kept her away from home for long hours. Though she repeatedly felt a spiritual pull to leave her job to focus full-time on Shadrach, fear of the financial strain on her family kept her from making the leap, and she left her son’s progress in the hands of public state institutions. For years, little improvement came.

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic amplified that persistent calling to resign, turning a quiet nudge into an unavoidable conviction. A follow-up assessment confirmed what Robinson had feared: Shadrach had made almost no progress in years, and the couple’s hope was wearing thin. That was when Robinson made the irreversible decision: she walked away from her corporate career, pulled Shadrach from traditional school, and launched a structured homeschooling programme with support from local homeschooling collective Jamaica Life Learners.

The early months of homeschooling were fraught with struggle and frustration. Robinson came close to abandoning her efforts entirely, and one Friday, overwhelmed, she decided to set aside all formal lessons. It was in that moment of pause that she followed spiritual guidance to test a new phonics-based speech technique, grouping letters by vowels and consonants to build foundational speech skills. At first, Shadrach showed no response. Robinson, frustrated, sent him off to play. Minutes later, she heard a clear, quiet voice repeating the vowels: A, E, I, O, U. Shadrach was five years old, and that small moment was the turning point the family had waited years for.

The most cherished milestone came soon after, when Robinson cried alone in Shadrach’s room, wondering if she would ever hear her son say “I love you”. As she turned away weeping, she felt Shadrach approach, and a jumbled, quiet phrase reached her ears: “I love you.” Over and over, he repeated the words, growing louder and clearer each time. To this day, Shadrach, now 10, repeats the phrase to his mother constantly – a gift she never takes for granted.

Following that breakthrough, Robinson continued to adapt her approach, drawing on targeted resources and integrating consistent spiritual intercession into her work with Shadrach. Over five years of steady effort, the transformation extended far beyond speech. Once, the boy’s severe sensory issues meant five adults had to restrain him just to clean his teeth; he refused all but a tiny handful of foods due to texture aversions, and was triggered by common sounds and numbers. Today, Shadrach eats a full range of foods, manages his sensory challenges independently, and attends a mainstream public school. A recent re-evaluation only diagnosed a mild expressive receptive language gap, and he is fully capable of caring for himself. An aspiring engineer with a passion for aviation, he regularly repairs old gadgets and phones around the house, and can identify aircraft make and model mid-flight just by looking up at the sky.

Buoyed by her son’s unimaginable progress, Robinson founded Gifted Minds in 2021, a home-based, individualised intervention programme that supports other children on the autism spectrum across Jamaica. What began as a personal journey to save her own son has become a mission to bring hope to other families who have been given devastating diagnoses.

In encouraging other parents facing similar struggles, Robinson urges people not to get stuck in grief or the question of “why me.” Instead, she advises shifting focus to asking “how” – how to learn, how to adapt, how to advocate for your child. It is that shift, she says, that opened the door to every breakthrough her family has experienced, turning a prognosis of lifelong dependence into a story of radical transformation and purpose.

On a dedicated Saturday mission, a volunteer team from the Allied Protection Foundation set out for western Jamaica to kick off critical restoration work at DRB Grant Demonstration Basic School, located in Montego Bay’s Catherine Hall neighborhood. This hands-on community improvement project forms a core part of the foundation’s official programming for Jamaica’s 2026 Labour Day, a national observance centered on voluntary public service.

In an official media statement released two days ahead of the mission, the foundation detailed the urgent need for the work: more than six months after Category 5 Hurricane Melissa swept through the island on October 28 of the previous year, the rural basic school continues to grapple with lingering storm damage that has disrupted learning for its young students.

The initiative is not a solo effort, the foundation noted. It has partnered with three local Jamaican organizations—JN Foundation, Rainbow Appliances, and Maa Sai Enterprise Limited—to pool resources and labor for the project. When completed, the team will have refreshed the school’s campus with new coats of paint and vibrant, student-centered murals designed to brighten the learning environment. Beyond structural improvements, the collaborative group also donated two critical assets to the school: a 1,000-gallon water storage tank to address ongoing water access challenges left by the hurricane, and a 32-inch smart television to support digital learning for the student body.

This project marks a key milestone for the newly launched Allied Protection Foundation, which recently consolidated all of the parent organization’s major charitable programming under one centralized umbrella to streamline impact. Beyond the Montego Bay hurricane recovery work, the foundation manages two other long-standing education-focused initiatives: a daily school breakfast program serving students at Clan Carthy Primary School in St Andrew, and the Donald Williams Scholarship, which provides financial support to eligible Jamaican students pursuing further education.

In closing, the foundation emphasized that all of its programming, from disaster recovery to ongoing education support, grows out of the parent company’s deep, long-standing commitment to advancing education, driving inclusive community development, and upholding meaningful corporate social responsibility across Jamaica.