Basseterre, St. Kitts, December 10, 2015 (SKNIS): Minister of Health, Honourable Eugene Hamilton, has publicly commended the family of the late Nurse Ruth Hodge for establishing the Nurse Hodge Children of the Caribbean Foundation to the benefit of pregnant women who attend prenatal clinics at the Old Road Community Centre.
Minister Hamilton thanked the foundation on behalf of his ministry and said it is very important to remember communities that were critical during an individual’s initial developmental years.
“I think it is important that people who get the opportunity to travel, and increase in knowledge and understanding and who themselves have raised themselves up by their own boot-straps, should always give back to the community that helped to nurture them,” Minister Hamilton said. “And this community has nurtured this family and this is one of the reasons why I’m so glad to be part of this ceremony.”
The Minister further threw out the invitation for other like-minded individuals to do likewise for their respective communities.
“The Ministry of Health is pleased that individuals like you Cherrie, Rosie and Tommy, that you have chosen to give back to this community and I want to encourage others who are out there in the diaspora and even here in the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis who are in a much better position, to give back to the community that has helped to mould you,” he said. “I therefore want to encourage all the mothers and fathers too, to ensure that the services that are being offered here by the clinic and the gift being presented by this wonderful foundation as a result of Ruth, you will take advantage of it.”
Parliamentary Representative for Constituency #4, under which Old Road falls, Honourable Lindsay Grant, similarly commended the Hodge family.
“So often, we achieve much in life but never seem to give back,” he said. “And I think this is a wonderful occasion by the Hodges to give back something. Not only to this community, in particular, but I understand throughout the island in general. But I think you started it here, because I remember many years ago, we would see Nurse Hodge walking up and down this district, dedicated, committed not only to this community in terms of its health care but the entire health system in the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis.”
The project which is funded by the Nurse Hodge Children of the Caribbean Foundation gives incentives to pregnant women to attend prenatal and postnatal clinics by awarding them points that they can use to claim baby care products, including clothing, upon the birth of their child.