KINGSTON, Jamaica— The People’s National Party has called for the immediate resignation of the Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Christopher Tufton, and a comprehensive probe into what it says is a 43 per cent mortality rate of the neonates in the nursery at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital (VJH).

Dr Tufton told the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday that he received a report in late August that there had been a bacterial outbreak in the neonatal intensive care unit at Victoria Jubilee Hospital, and that the region had gone in with the hospital’s senior clinicians to assess and to respond.

Tufton said that of the 16 babies infected as a result of a bacterial outbreak since July, 12 babies have died.

READ: 12 babies die from bacterial infection at Victoria Jubilee Hospital

General Secretary of the PNP, Dr Dayton Campbell, in a statement on Thursday, said that the Health Minister’s acceptance of the deaths of the babies and their families’ trauma is callous and unacceptable.

“While neonatal mortality due to infection is not uncommon, a 43 per cent mortality rate is alarming and people must be held accountable for this massive death toll,” Campbell stated.

He also noted that ministers of previous Government administrations have lost their portfolios for neonatal deaths with far lower mortality rates.

“Infection control is seminal to the management of neonatal nurseries and to leave the staff at VJH without the necessary tools to ensure this infection control is tantamount to a dereliction of duty,” the general secretary further opined.

The Opposition Party further stated that it is not enough for the Health Minister to merely publicly admit to this tragic loss.

“This approach neither shows accountability to the families of the neonates lost nor inspires confidence in the expectant families, whose babies may need neonatal care in the nation’s premier maternity facility in the near future,” the PNP said in a statement.

The Party went on to extend condolences to the families who have lost their babies.