KINGSTON, Jamaica — Opposition Spokesperson on Health and Wellness Dr Alfred Dawes says the country is currently facing a cancer crisis due to the unavailability of CT scans and MRI machines at hospitals.

“We are currently facing a cancer crisis. If you look at the Kingston Public Hospital, that does a lot of the cancers, because they cannot get CAT scans and MRIs to properly stage the diseases and work up patients, even get proper investigations like colonoscopies to diagnose the cancers at an earlier stage, we are seeing far more advanced cancers being presented, and the outcomes are a lot worse. Since they stopped the outsourcing of diagnostic equipment, the government stopped paying for it, a lot of people who cannot afford the diagnostic equipment simply cannot get them,” he said.

Dr Dawes, who was speaking at a press conference on Tuesday at the People’s National Party (PNP) Old Hope Road headquarters, said this delays treatment for patients who may be financially challenged in raising the funds to do the scans privately.

“And so they have to wait for inordinately long periods of time to come up with the funds before they can get these scans, and that delays definitive treatment. It simply means that if you are poor and cannot afford to pay for private diagnostics right now, you are far worse than somebody who can call in a favour or find the money to pay for such diagnostics. It has reached even the point where simple hernias, we’re not operating on simple hernias, we’re operating on hernias when they get complicated and present as an emergency,” he said.

“This is just showing you how bad things are because these are the conditions that, if treated in a timely manner would never get to the stage where there are an emergency. But we are facing a cancer crisis in Jamaica, and the numbers are telling us the true picture,” Dawes continued.

— Vanassa McKenzie