Cabinet has approved plans to rebuild four public hospitals with a combined 1,370 beds, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton said on Wednesday. No cost estimate or financing plan was disclosed.

Speaking at the post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House on October 7, Tufton listed the projects as a 250-bed Black River Hospital in St Elizabeth, a 250-bed Falmouth General Hospital in Trelawny, a 150-bed Noel Holmes Hospital in Hanover and a 720-bed Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) campus, according to the Jamaica Information Service (JIS).

The three western facilities are in parishes that took heavy damage from Hurricane Melissa in October 2025

The KPH campus is the largest of the four. JIS reported that it will be built on land the ministry acquired earlier this year and is meant to serve as the Type A referral hospital and national trauma centre under the Government’s new secondary healthcare model.

The ministry intends to deliver the programme with the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA). The arrangement was described as a proposed collaboration, one expected to shorten the process from design and construction through to equipping and maintenance. The hospitals are to be built to the Pan American Health Organization’s Smart Health Facility standards, which cover structural safety and climate resilience.

Several details remain open. Tufton said the locations of some facilities have not been settled, and that the ministry is still working with the National Land Agency and other stakeholders on sites. The release gave no construction start dates, procurement method or funding source.

The Minister said the Government has spent more than J$1 billion restoring existing facilities. He presented that outlay as unavoidable, since a new hospital takes about three years to design, build, equip and commission, and patients have to be treated in the meantime.

For the construction sector, the approval adds a sizeable block of public work to the reconstruction pipeline. Four hospital builds running in overlapping windows would draw on the same pool of contractors, skilled labour, cement and building materials already committed to post-hurricane repairs.

That demand also bears on prices. The Bank of Jamaica has pointed to reconstruction spending as a source of pressure in its inflation outlook.

The next markers for investors and suppliers are a finalised agreement between the ministry and NaRRA, confirmed sites for the western hospitals, and a first cost estimate. Until those are published, the scale of the programme in dollar terms cannot be assessed.