TRURO, Westmoreland

Rural Westmoreland is set to welcome a new $50-million medical facility by year-end.

The facility, to be named the Dr Paul Gamerstfelder Mission Centre, is being constructed by the Church of the Nazarene in the rural farming community of Truro in the parish with assistance from the Mission of Sight Ministries in Ohio, USA.

The pastor, Reverend Lionel Brown, said the facility will accommodate general practitioners, optical and dental services and an early childhood institution.

Officials of both organisations broke ground for the multimillion-dollar facility on Saturday. Located on lands opposite the Frome High School, the facility is scheduled to be completed in nine months, by 12 teams of mission workers from the United States.

Rev Brown hopes eventually to expand the facility to include recreational offerings and is now having talks with the government with a view to acquiring more land in the area.

Dr Gamertsfelder, after whom the facility will be named, is an ophthalmologist whom his colleagues say has dedicated his life to the medical ministry in the Caribbean.

"It couldn't be named after a more fitting person," said fellow ophthalmologist, Dr Doug McCloy of Mandeville.