Gareth Davis Sr, Star Writer

Fairy Hill, Portland

A 78-year-old Canadian tourist drowned at Winifred beach in Portland on Wednesday.

Josephine Palmore, a retired registered nurse, who is originally from Trinidad, but is a Canadian national residing in Laudersdale Lakes, Florida in the United States, was visiting Jamaica with friends.

The police said that shortly after 5 p.m., Palmore, while swimming, got into difficulty and had to be rescued. A doctor, who was at the beach, gave her CPR and she responded. Calls were reportedly made to the Port Antonio Hospital for an ambulance but to no avail.

A taxi operator volunteered to take Palmore to hospital, but five miles from the institution, suffered a punctured tyre. Shortly after, a police team rushed Palmore to the hospital. She was pronounced dead at 7:10 p.m. upon arriving.

Angry residents later converged at the hospital, accusing the staff of negligence and dereliction of duty. They argued that the emergency services at the hospital were unresponsive as calls were made repeatedly, but without success.

Efforts to contact hospital administrators were unsuccessful, however, The Star learnt that two ambulances are at the hospital.