Judy Mowatt to host health fair in Portland - Reggae great suffered painful medical issue last year

After being hospitalised in 2023 due to a condition called osteomyelitis, veteran singer Judy Mowatt is aiming to assist those who are also suffering but lack the resources to get proper medical attention.

Osteomyelitis is an inflammation or swelling that occurs in the bone, and for most of last year, it severely impacted Mowatt's life.

"I had excruciating pain in my back, I couldn't stand, I had to use a cane, had to use a wheelchair, had to use a walker. They even had to teach me how to walk at the hospital and I was walking around for months with this thing and I didn't know what was wrong with me," Mowatt said. The veteran singer said that like her, many Jamaicans are experiencing the same.

"A lot of people are walking around with cancer in their bodies and they don't know... . People are suffering from different kinds of ailments, diseases, sicknesses and they don't know what is wrong with them," Mowatt said. She also told THE STAR that she is on a mission to help those seeking medical assistance.

"Majority of people today do not have the money to see a proper medical doctor or they're not interested, because you find that they have to be waiting and they have children to take care of. So having a community health fair where the community can come out and they have everything on spot ... makes a significant difference," Mowatt said. On Saturday, July 27, Mowatt will be hosting a health fair in Long Bay, Portland, where she hopes persons will take advantage of the free medical care being offered to them.

She told THE STAR that she selected the Long Bay area, not only because of her love for the parish, but because the Lord instructed her to do so.

"I'm a Christian and because the Lord told me to do a health fair, I proceeded. I was overseas because I was hospitalised for 21 days. But when I was home in New Jersey, the Lord told me to have the health fair in the Long Bay area for the people," Mowatt explained. She said that a wide range of medical testing will be available including electrocardiograms which check the heart and record the heartbeat. It can help to diagnose heart attacks and other ailments.

"If people can get to know what is wrong with them and they can attack it early, then there is a chance of them not dying of this ailment," Mowatt said.

"I recently had a nephew that died. He was in a coma and he never came back out, and it was a heart attack that he had that just sent him home. And I see a lot of people right now suffering from heart ailments because of the pressures of life. The heart is not able to take so much pressure," Mowatt added.