MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Director of the Southern Regional Health Authority (SRHA) Michael Bent has suggested that some strategies used by health-care workers be adopted to assist in the clearing up of criminal cases.

He made the suggestion against the background that health-care workers conducted high levels of contact tracing and coordinated activities following the onset of the novel coronavirus in Jamaica two years ago

“One has to appreciate the interviewing skills that our health-care workers utilised in order to elicit very critical and confidential information from affected people as part of the contact tracing mechanism. And that is why I strongly believe that some consideration should be given to adopting some of the interviewing skill techniques used by health-care workers to assist in solving some of our crimes in this country,” said Bent during the launch and church service for health-care workers in the southern region at the Mandeville Seventh-day Adventist Church on Wednesday.

“The response to the pandemic required more than just the management of patients and establishing quarantine zones. Our health-care workers had to traverse several communities doing contact tracing as a strategy to cauterise the virus. These were conducted in private residences, nursing homes, institutions, private and public workplaces,” added Bent.

He reflected on Jamaica’s first confirmed case, which was announced on March 10, 2020 and the subsequent events that resulted in panic.

“Shortly thereafter the sacrificial sojourn of the highly committed team of more than 3,600 team members from the Southern Regional Health Authority began responding to the pandemic when it was discovered that the first case had contact in the parish of Clarendon.

“The first person to die from the parish unfortunately died at the Mandeville Regional Hospital. One can imagine… the tension and the extra pressure [placed] on the organisation. We had to be responding to the media and other external concerns, while simultaneously keeping our staff focused. This was followed shortly by the parish of Clarendon having to establish two quarantine zones,” noted Bent.

He said establishing a quarantine zone was “no easy feat” and that the southern region, which comprises Clarendon, Manchester and St Elizabeth, has had to manage more than 27,800 confirmed COVID-19 cases.

“Over 16,060 of whom are old health-care workers. Unfortunately, the region had more than 800 deaths — seven of whom were members of our own staff. Happily almost 20,000 people have recovered thanks to your efforts,” he told his audience which consisted of healthcare workers and civic leaders.

Bent expressed gratitude to the health-care workers who managed longer working hours and balanced various cases of trauma during the pandemic.

“With over 20,000 people confirmed [COVID-19] positive the team had to do contact tracing to over 53,000 people,” he said.

“It was the same health team which had to be carrying out the other duties in our health facilities. We still have the trauma cases, the gunshot wounds, the motor vehicle accidents. We still had to deal with the pregnant mothers coming to our health centres,” Bent added.

He reflected on the region’s move to establish mass vaccination sites in each parish.

“The response to the pandemic would not have been complete without the administration of vaccines, which saw our team members going way beyond the call of duty to ensure that those who needed the vaccine could get it,” said Bent.

“To date at the end of June, the service-oriented team of the SRHA, through great sacrifice and commitment have administered some 387,000 doses of vaccines to people in Manchester, Clarendon and St Elizabeth,” Bent added as he described the healthcare workers as “true heroes”.

“As health-care workers we had to make many sacrifices throughout the pandemic sacrifices of families to include our spouses, our children, our parents among others. Our health-care workers had to work throughout the pandemic, some having to work in excess of 16 hours consistently,” noted Bent.