OPPOSITION spokesman on health Dr Alfred Dawes has charged that the Andrew Holness-led Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government has the worst record on health care when compared to any other Administration in the country’s history.

Dawes, the People’s National Party (PNP) caretaker for St Catherine South Eastern, made the claim Sunday night as he addressed a massive PNP Youth Organisation (PNP YO) Youth Rally at Anthony Spaulding Sports Complex in the St Andrew Southern constituency of Opposition Leader and PNP President Mark Golding.

Accusing Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton of public relations gimmicks while the health sector was reeling, Dawes said, “I’m going to state here tonight (Sunday), for the record, that this Government will go down as the worst Government in Jamaica’s history when it comes to health care — and I have my receipts to back it up.”

According to Dawes, “More mothers today giving birth — and this affects you as the youth, the childbearing age — more mothers have a higher death rate (maternal death) today than in the 1980s. Babies today have a higher death rate than 20 years ago, and dem blaming the babies and dem blaming the mothers. What can go so?”

He added: “Comrades, under this Administration cancer rates are the highest ever, diabetes rates are the highest ever, high blood pressure (hypertension) and stroke rates are the highest ever, chronic kidney disease that requires dialysis are the highest ever.”

Dawes, a medical doctor, told the crowd that a baby born in Jamaica in 2025 can expect to live for a shorter period than a baby born in 2015 as, for the first time since Independence in 1962, life expectancy in Jamaica has gone down.

He argued that this is evidence that the current JLP Administration is the worst when it comes to health-care delivery in Jamaica.

“Everywhere in the Americas people are living longer [while] Jamaicans are expected to die at an earlier age under this Administration,” charged Dawes.

Stating that the Opposition has been highlighting the shortcomings in the health sector, he alleged that there is a crisis in the public health sector but the Administration has been concentrating on public relations gimmicks instead of fixing the problems.

“They said that we are telling lies and creating political mischief, and it doesn’t matter that it is nurses and doctors migrating,” charged Dawes.

He told the Comrades that, “the hospitals are broken, the clinics are broken, the equipment run down — and all of this is because dem have a ‘eat a food’ policy over a healthy food policy”.

Dawes, who is seeking to topple the JLP’s Robert Miller in what is traditionally a strong PNP seat, said his party understands health care and knows what to do to fix the problems.

According to Dawes, the solutions include creating incentives for the health professionals to stay in the public sector.

“And because of this the PNP, when we’re in power, we will allow nurses, doctors, pharmacists, all health-care workers — when you hear a [housing] scheme a build and it’s a lottery fi you try get a house — we are going to take you out of that lottery and 5,000 houses will be available to you in the next PNP Administration,” said Dawes.

He also reminded of a promise made by Golding in his budget presentation in March that $1 billion will be set aside by a future PNP Government to gift $500,000 to people under age 35 towards the deposit on a National Housing Trust home.

“So don’t go foreign go build nobody country, go build yuh house, add on a room, go upstairs,” Dawes encouraged.

He further promised that under a PNP Government, public sector workers who desire to own a motor vehicle will be able to benefit from a 20 per cent duty concession.

“Because the PNP believes in the people, and you have to take care of those who take care of the people,” declared Dawes.