Patients also received gifts in addition to the visit from the Premier, who was accompanied by At-Large representative, Neville Smith.

“The look on their faces was priceless! This is true BVI love,” Premier Fahie said.

Meanwhile, the Premier told BVI News on Friday, that the tradition is more than a half a century old.

“For the past 51 years the Nurses of the Dr D. Orlando Smith Hospital host a Christmas service at the hospital on Christmas day and also spearhead the giving out of gifts to patients to show an even extra caring on Christmas seeing that the patients are not home for Christmas,” Fahie stated.

He continued: “The opening ceremony/service was first, then the handing out of the gifts was done afterwards.”

The Premier said besides from being part sponsors of the event, he and Smith wanted to be physically present to “visit each patient and express warm Season Greetings while distributing the Christmas gifts”.

“The kind gesture started 51 years ago with Nurse Adina Donovan. We thank the current cadre of nurses for continuing this noble gesture of spreading BVI love during the season of giving,” he said.

The Premier said they would “have rather been nowhere else on Christmas Day other than at Hospital assisting in spreading joy”.

The two legislators also paid a visit to the Adina Donovan Home for the Elderly.