Savanna-la-Mar, Jamaica — Morning routines were briefly upended in downtown Savanna-la-Mar as healthcare workers left their wards and took to the streets, not in protest of wages or working conditions — but in defense of life itself.
Without the backing of a union or national campaign, nurses and hospital staff from Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital staged an unannounced awareness walk against what they describe as a “national pattern of tolerated brutality.” The catalyst: a harrowing viral video showing a nurse being stomped in the head during a road dispute in Kingston. The accused, a 65-year-old businessman, is now facing charges — but for these frontline workers, justice isn’t enough.
“This wasn’t just about her,” said one participant, declining to give her name. “It’s about all of us. The nurse who walks home after night duty. The woman who stays silent at home. The child afraid to speak. We’ve had enough.”
There were no microphones. No banners funded by NGOs. Just cardboard signs, handwritten pleas, and a chorus of staff who momentarily abandoned the safety of their hospital to confront the danger outside it.
“Silence is a weapon. We’re choosing not to be armed with it today,” said Stacey-Ann Scott, a senior ward manager who helped mobilize the effort. “We showed up because this country needs to start showing up for its women, children, and caretakers.”
Their message? Violence isn’t an issue for politicians to fix later — it’s a cultural sickness that requires immediate intervention. From Hendon Square to Barracks Road, they repeated a single line: “You can’t heal a nation while it’s still hurting its healers.”
As vehicles paused and pedestrians slowed to watch, a few joined in, while others simply nodded in quiet agreement.
The march ended where it began — at the hospital gates — but not before igniting a conversation that, for many in Westmoreland, had grown far too quiet.
