Dear Editor,

Hundreds of children suffering with heart problems still anxiously await life-saving help because governmental bureaucracy has hampered completion of a local and international private sector-funded paediatric cardiac centre at Bustamante Hospital. If that is not enough to remove Health Minister Dr Fenton Ferguson, then I don’t know what is.

Over $100 million of private sector funding has been pumped into the important project and, because of poor oversight, the lives of hundreds of Jamaican children, largely poor, remain at risk.

The president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, Christopher Zacca, recently called on Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller to shuffle the Cabinet. He is right in his call; several ministers are performing terribly, including Industry Minister Anthony Hylton and the health minister. While others, like Natalie Neita-Headley, Patrick Atkinson and Lisa Hanna, seem like extra unnecessary weight. As for Phillip Paulwell, he seems to have the vision, but is simply unable to see things through to a successful end.

Back to Minister Ferguson, it is obvious that the public health system is running him and not the other way around. The maternity Victoria Jubilee Hospital reportedly ran out of water, the chikungunya virus is spreading with wild abandon, the University Hospital of the West Indies’ canteen was closed after being overrun with roaches, operating theatres were shut down because of failing air-conditioning systems, there exist three-year wait times for urgent surgery at the Kingston Public Hospital, and on top of this are salary and allowance shortages by health employees. These issues and more are testament to his failure as minister. He is out of his depth.

For heaven’s sake, the health sector is in need of a hard-nosed manager who can work under severe pressure and with humbug bureaucracy, Dr Ferguson is not that person. Shuffle him out quickly, Prime Minister.

Dr Kerry-Ann Foster

Miramar, Florida

kerryfoster18@gmail.com