PEOPLE’S National Party (PNP) spokesperson on health and wellness, Dr Alfred Dawes on Wednesday called for an overhaul of what he claims is a broken public health system on the verge of a crisis, but portfolio Minister Dr Christopher Tufton has dismissed this charge as an attempt to create mischief, noting that reforms are currently underway.

Citing the health system’s failure to reduce infant and maternal deaths and to adequately address the prevalence of non-communicable diseases, despite an increased budget, Dr Dawes argued that these are some measurable consequences “for the failure to implement and maintain an adequate health-care system”.

Dr Dawes, who was addressing a press conference at the Office of the Opposition Leader in St Andrew, noted that he was not suggesting reinventing the wheel, as there are many proposals — green papers and white papers — “languishing in the Ministry of Health just begging for implementation, begging for prioritisation.

“And until we do so, we will be left with horror stories because the broken system is going to continue to produce horror stories. Jamaicans are getting sicker and sicker. We have more diabetics, more hypertensives, more people with chronic diseases, an ageing population and all of these increase the burden on our public health facilities,” he said.

“If we’re not seeing significant improvements to keep up with the rate of increases in these chronic diseases on the ageing population, we’re going to reach a crisis level. And unfortunately, if we continue along the route that we’re taking, that crisis level will be fairly soon. We may be just one natural disaster, God forbid, another pandemic away. But as it is right now, our public system is no better to the end user, it is no better using the international metrics, such as maternal and infant mortality rates than it was years ago,” he said.

However, Dr Tufton, in an audio release on Wednesday, said he could not fathom how the Opposition “could be claiming that somehow the public health system has not seen the greatest level of reform since Independence.

“[We have added] 1,000 additional doctors, 1,500 new places for nurses for permanent post; more build out of hospital beds, operating theatres than ever before, certainly since Independence; diagnostic equipment leasing which is leading to a more consistent and reliable outflow and use of diagnostics; and a primary health care reform that will see…additional doctors primary community level, as well as several additional services; not to mention the National Health Fund (NHF), which is prescribing some three million prescriptions a year from a million years ago, more categories of illnesses is being added, subsidised prostate screening breast cancer screening”.

“So there is so much that this Government is doing and to hear the Opposition make the claim that somehow the system needs reform without a recognition that the reform is in fact taking place, and tangibly so where Jamaicans are benefiting, it tells me that they are refusing to see [this progress] or there is as an attempt at mischief. We will clarify that because I believe the Jamaican people deserve the truth and transparency around what is happening,” he said.

Dr Dawes also used the press conference to reiterate his shortage of working ventilators claim and to again press the Government to state how many functioning ventilators are in Jamaica.

He had first raised the issue of operational ventilators following the death of a premature newborn baby at the May Pen Hospital in Clarendon last Tuesday because there was no ventilator access.

At that time, he was querying the working condition and locations of the more than 100 ventilators that were donated to the Government through the efforts of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, the European Union, and private individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In response, Dr Tufton said that given the public interest, audits have been done regarding the ventilators, and he promised to provide better particulars.

Last Friday, the health ministry had said all ventilators donated to the country during the COVID-19 pandemic were accounted for and were at health facilities throughout the island.

Dr Dawes also ripped into the Government’s Programme for the Reduction of Maternal and Child Mortality (PROMAC), which was embarked on 10 years ago, with funding from the EU, noting its failure to achieve its goals.

“The aims of the PROMAC programme to decrease maternal and child mortality rates have failed because of…maybe other incidents or other contributing factors, but the fact of the matter is that over the last eight years we have seen a steady climb in the number of mothers dying during pregnancy and delivery. The maternal mortality rate is the highest it has been in over 30 years. The neonatal mortality rate is higher today than it was 20 years ago. The number of children under age five or dying is higher than it was 20 years ago,” he said, while not giving specific statistics.

After listing out the various facilities where intensive care unit (ICU) facilities or high-dependency unit (HDU) facilities were to have been built out under the programme, Dr Dawes called for an audit of the number of these units available in the country.

“We know that the contracts were signed, we know that the money was allocated and we know exactly where the high-dependency units for mothers and babies should have been built out…So the EU gave money then and the EU gave money again during COVID along with other Jamaican entities and individuals and we are still left in a situation where there’s a dire shortage of ICU beds and HDU beds for adults and neonates.

“This is more than just counting a ventilator. This is counting an HDU bed, which is the ventilator, proper monitoring, proper staffing to have a functioning high dependency unit so that when someone comes in needing high dependency care that is able to be administered at that facility. It is a part of any audit to look at not just a count of ventilators, but an audit of the PROMAC programme to see whether or not our international partners got value for their money,” he said.

To this, Dr Tufton said that a report can be done to clarify any misunderstanding or address any mischief as it relates to the PROMAC programme.

“The fact is that many hundreds of Jamaican mothers and their neonates that were involved in complicated pregnancies and deliveries have been supported by the PROMAC equipment and where the buildings exists through the PROMAC facilities…the programme has been quite useful to the Jamaican people,” he said.