KINGSTON, Jamaica — Opposition spokesman on finance and planning, Audley Shaw, is insisting that minister of health, Dr Fenton Ferguson, was aware of the infectious outbreaks at public hospitals, which have killed 19 infants in public hospitals, prior to mid-October.

Shaw accused Dr Ferguson of “lying through his teeth, when he said that the first he heard about the infectious diseases was on October 16”. He suggested that the minister could have been aware of the issue since August when the report of an audit he had ordered in May was sent to the ministry.

Shaw made the statement during a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) mass rally in May Pen Sunday night, which was hosted by the party’s Clarendon members of parliament and candidates.

According to the Opposition spokesman, he had done his own checks since Dr Ferguson’s denial during an exchange which followed a statement from the minister during last week’s sitting of the House of Representatives.

Shaw said that the details of the audit show that it addressed several issues related to the deaths including: Disposable instruments were being reused, but the level of sterilisation was inadequate; Gowns used in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, which are supposed to be disposable, were retained, hung up and shared by other people; At one hospital, the staff showed the auditors fungus growing between the glass in the operating theatre; Several breaches in infection control protocol in all hospitals; and, that from the first day the audit team arrived at the Cornwall Regional (June-July) they found an infectious outbreak in the neonatal ICU, which was reported in the audit.

“My question is, when Dr Ferguson and his senior team of people read the audit report, because they got it by the end of August, what action did they take? Did they order that something drastic must be done to deal with the infectious outbreak?” Shaw asked.

Opposition MPs had demanded that Ferguson table the audit in Parliament. Both Shaw, and Opposition leader, Andrew Holness, have also said that they will pursue the issue through the Access to Information (ATI) Act.

Balford Henry