Dear Editor,

Why is everyone calling for the resignation of the Minister of Health Dr Fenton Ferguson? I think the focus should be on the internal management of the ministry with closer scrutiny being paid to the emergency and disaster management portfolio.

A minister is advised by his team, and perhaps the mistake that Dr Ferguson made was to trust the words and actions of the team around him. I have been in the public sector and I know that the technocrats are the ones responsible for programmes. They brief ministers and let them know what is going on in their area.

If Dr Ferguson underestimated the extent of the chikungunya outbreak, it means that the technical team was sleeping on the job. It cannot be incumbent on the minister to do surveillance to determine the numbers himself.

Dr Ferguson, if I were you, I would seriously be looking closely at those who were meant to advise me and shed the dead weight.

On the issue of communication, this does not work in a vacuum; communication cannot be effective if it is not supported. In my public sector experience, I have never seen a public relations and communications department that has been given enough funding and resources. Furthermore, people cannot communicate information they do not have, and they also have to trust the word of the technocrats and depend on them for information. If the information that they gave to Dr Ferguson wasn’t good enough, then it wasn’t good enough for the purposes of communication. Also, communication plays a supportive role and is like a parasite that depends on information to survive. Put it this way, if the root is rotted the tree cannot bear fruit.

There needs to be a deeper look into the operations of the Ministry of Health.

Karen Small

smallerkaren@gmail.com