The Tribune

LACREASHA Thompson, a lab technologist at the Rand Memorial Hospital in Grand Bahama, became the July winner of the Public Hospitals Authority’s (PHA) Unsung Heroes Award yesterday.

Ms Thompson has enjoyed a ten-year career with the PHA and has developed a strong reputation with her supervisors, colleagues and the public for humility, teamwork and excellence, health officials said.

Her co-workers describe her as hardworking and efficient, honest and precise, and reliable and encouraging.

“I’m honoured to be given this opportunity and to receive this award, especially being a lab personnel, we tend to be behind the scenes, so it’s good to be recognised and I will continue to excel and offer good services to the public,” Ms Thompson said at a brief ceremony at the PHA yesterday.

The awards programme was launched earlier this year to recognise and reward excellence, care and compassion in The Bahamas’ healthcare system as part of a ground-breaking public-private partnership between the PHA, the Tribune Media Group and the Aiden Roger Carron Foundation.

The Unsung Heroes Awards identifies and publicly honours those PHA employees who have gone “beyond the call of duty” in providing levels of care and compassion throughout the islands, in the authority’s two hospitals (Princess Margaret and Rand Memorial), Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre and its 108 clinics and agencies.

Yesterday, PHA managing director Herbert Brown expressed profound gratitude to the Aiden Roger Carron Foundation for its help.

“It is through this foundation that we have been able to provide the resources required to make this one of perhaps the most prestigious award that we have in our public healthcare system,” Mr Brown said. “It is a very important award because at the end of the day, this is not about the Public Hospitals Authority, this is not about the managing director or the foundation, this is about those persons who will go to our institution and when they leave our institutions they would be able to say I was provided with quality healthcare.”

He said the millions the government invests in public healthcare would go to waste if patients cannot say they have received quality care from these institutions.

Kevin Darville, Tribune Media Group’s special projects co-ordinator, said Ms Thompson was deserving of yesterday’s recognition.

“She has clearly gone above and beyond the call of duty and is very deserving of this prestigious award. Keep up the good work,” Mr Darville said. “I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of the other nominees for the month of July and I hope they continue to do a great job.”

Ms Thompson joins previous award winners Veronica Ferguson, Patricia Laing, Una Bain and Glynis Armbrister and Zhivago McPhee.