Help! DGAS Disease Rampant in Jamaica

Have you been on the social media sites lately? Its funny but all you can see these days is the bucket challenge that has the highest to the lowest dunking a bucket of water over their head or thrown in their face or some just gone ridiculously wrong,  all in the name of ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.  I first saw this craze when the US royal family of politics the Kennedys collectively took the challenge and then challenged the US President  who respectfully declined.

What a smart move Mr President. You have enough problems of your own to throw a bucket of ice water over your head. He donated to the foundation and that was the end of that.  Now some 12 days later it seems like the entire Western world including Jamaica has taken on this ‘challenge’. 

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Its a hot trending topic on twitter and why not?  This bandwagon looks like fun so why not join in and be a part of the incrowd to bring awareness to ALS? The funny thing is a lot of these ‘awareness dunkers’ have no idea what ALS is and even why they use ice? Here are the facts: There are about 30,000 people in the USA that have ALS and the ice is used to give the dunker a similar effect of what the ALS patient experience.  Very effective isn’t it? They managed to raise over US$23 million at the time of writing this piece. It has worked. Millions now remember  the disease and are more aware. Bravo.  But whiter Jamaica in all of this? What are the figures if any raised for a similar charity?. Up to the point of writing this article there were no figures published.

When you look at this image (not taken in Jamaica) you have to stop and think?  Is the act of awareness worth throwing away scarce resources? People live with the ALS disease, good news, at least for a good while. On the contrary, no one can live without water. And here we are throwing it away, for awareness! There are districts in Jamaica with no piped water to their homes! There are people in Jamaica with water 2 days out of 7. There are people in Jamaica starving for water and food. We need a new awareness of how valuable water is. Just look at the image. They would give anything to get a bucket or two of good clean water!

In Jamaica there is a water crisis. What  else is new? Every year for the past umpteenth years, Jamaicans know we have a dry spell of low rainfall. This is not news, it is tradition. Yet every year we go through the same dramatic no news sequel of no water in the corporate area and certain parishes . You would think Jamaicans would be more aware of the value of water but no, we suffer from a more lethal disease,  the DGAS ( Don’t give a Sh*t Disease) so its none of our business.

There are many fire hydrants without water, the farmers have no water for production, there are schools without water, schools in Jamaica without a toilet, the NWC have regular shut off of water to the point it is now a tradition,  there are burst pipes with water flowing in the street going to waste,homeless people without a bottle of water but hey, we have a chronic DGAS disease, so its none of our business.  

Jamaicans love anything foreign so the latest trend is just too cool to give up. We are going to throw water anywhere possible even in our stately government office but thats’ none of my business. When the cost t odry the office including any repairs to equipment then it becomes MY business. Where is the money coming from?

Statistics for the ALS disease in Jamaica is literally unknown but there are brain related disease that hardly get any notice much less funds in Jamaica. There are organizations in Jamaica that do an excellent job of trying to get the meagre coins for their cause and I salute them. But who will take up the real cause in Jamaica? We need help for our national disease , the dreaded DGAS disease.This disease only affects Jamaicans so we have to find a National cure and find it fast. 

This disease is worse than ALS if one can equate the two. This disease causes a neurological problem that cases Jamaicans  not to acknowledge reality. The reality is this:

1 We have a NJS – No Job Sclerosis that needs awareness

2. We have a SWTS – Schools Without Toilet Sclerosis  that needs awareness

3. We have a JRAS – Justice For All Sclerosis that needs awareness

4. We have a HERS – High Energy Rate Sclerosis that needs awareness

5. We have a HCS- Health Care Sclerosis that needs awareness

6. We have a PBS – Police Brutality Sclerosis that needs awareness

7. We have a ECS – Education Cost Sclerosis that needs awareness  

8. We have a PCS – Price Control Sclerosis that needs awareness

This list is only a start but the awareness is plenty.  When do we start to bring awareness to these diseases?

We have gotten our priorities mixed up Jamaica. We follow American traditions, borrow their money and yet we cannot fix our own problems. Stop this nonsense . America is solving its own problem. How about us starting to solve our own. 

Written by Paul Tomlinson

Check out his website HERE

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