The Public Health Department has condemned 5,661 kilogrammes of food in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa which has left several south-western parishes with little or no electricity since it impacted Jamaica on October 28.

The food was ordered destroyed after 5,052 food handling establishments were assessed, Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton disclosed in Parliament on Tuesday.

Tufton, in a ministerial statement, gave an update on the damage to the health sector and the Government’s response.

“Large farms and food processing farms were visited and continued to be monitored to ensure that unsafe food is precluded from the country’s food supply chain and to prevent the outbreak of food-borne diseases,” said Tufton.

He assured that “safety interventions will be strengthened in the coming weeks as greater access is gained into the communities that were marooned and unreachable”.

For his part, Opposition spokesman on health Dr Alfred Dawes, while stressing that the country must stand united in its response, warned that vigilance must be maintained to prevent the outbreak of disease.

“I address this noble House today in response to the honourable minister’s statement, not to critique or engage in rebuttal, but to recognise, first of all, the hard work of the team at the Ministry of Health and the regional health authorities during this once-in-700-year event, and to augment the call for unity, empathy, and commitment to the amelioration of the conditions of our brothers and sisters most impacted by Hurricane Melissa,” Dawes said.

He added that while debate will continue as to how prepared the country was for the Category 5 hurricane, “history has taught us that plague follows natural disasters”.

“We cannot fully prepare for a natural disaster, but we have the window of opportunity today to prepare for, and possibly avert, a public heath disaster in the upcoming months,” he said.

A medical doctor by training, Dawes, the Member of Parliament for St Catherine South Eastern, said that dysentery, dengue, pneumonia, leptospirosis, and typhoid are already present in Jamaica.

“Malaria, yellow fever, and cholera are possible where people are living under tarpaulins, drinking river water, and practising open defecation,” he said.

“We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fix not just health care but the social determinants of health… We must do it as one people, together,” he added.

However, Tufton told the House that the health ministry has so far received no unusual reports of outbreak of diseases in the wake of Hurricane Melissa. He said surveillance teams within the public health system have been actively monitoring health trends, with special attention to water-borne and vector-borne illnesses that often emerge after such weather events.

“The ministry continues to urge citizens to practise proper hygiene, use safe water sources, and to promptly report any symptoms of illness to the nearest health facility,” he encouraged.

Tufton also shared that a rapid infrastructure assessment has revealed that there has been extensive damage to the health infrastructure across the island. He said the ministry’s response will cover three phases; the first being the relief phase that involves the reinstatement of health services, the saving of lives, and the prevention of diseases. Phase one will occur over three months, while phase two of the programme has the objective of re-establishing all health services to pre-hurricane levels.

“Phase three is our reconstruction phase, where we build back better,” Tufton said before displaying a map which showed that the areas managed by the Southern Regional Health Authority, Northern Regional Health Authority and Western Regional Health Authority bore the brunt of Melissa’s fury.

These regions cover the parishes St Elizabeth, Clarendon, Manchester, St James, Hanover, Westmoreland, St Ann, and Trelawny.

Tufton told the House that seven hospitals on the southern and western belt of the island experienced catastrophic damage to roof and infrastructure. These facilities include Black River in St Elizabeth, Noel Holmes in Hanover, Falmouth in Trelawny, Cornwall Regional in St James, Savanna-la-Mar in Westmoreland, and St Ann’s Bay in St Ann.

He said Bellevue Hospital in Kingston also suffered damage during the passage of the hurricane, including roofing system failure, damage to biomedical equipment, electrical and sanitation, and the storm water system.

Based on assessment, operations have been re-established at St Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital with the exception of the Dietary Department.

However, Cornwall Regional has lost bed capacity of about 200; Falmouth Hospital has lost 65 per cent of its roof and severe damage to laboratory and radiological services. Savanna-la-Mar Hospital had 65 per cent roof damage along with other flooding damage and storm surge. To date, about 50 per cent of the roof at Cornwall Regional has been reinstated.

Tufton said Black River Hospital has seen the most significant damage with the facility being decommissioned in the short term. A field hospital has since been established on the compound, one has been established in Falmouth, and another is to be set up in Savanna-la-Mar.

He also said that the country’s efforts at primary care reform have been significantly disrupted with more than 100 health centres across the four regional health authorities experiencing damage, including to roof, fencing, and water damage. This, Tufton noted, has severely impacted service delivery to the population.

“Our primary health care system is the bedrock of our service, as such the ministry is of the mindset that the services are restored in the shortest period of time,” the minister said.

He said health care professionals have aligned themselves to this mission and already, despite the challenges being faced in these facilities, attendance at work now averages 79 per cent. This, he explained, has enabled critical primary care services for maternal and child health, HIV treatment and care, and immunisation and other curative services to be re-established in approximately 30 per cent of damaged facilities.

Overall, phase one of the response has five components. These include the rapid assessment of all health facilities; the repair and mobilisation of health infrastructure to restore basic services; mass environmental health migration actions; psychosocial and mental health interventions; and staff welfare actions.

An aerial view of a section of Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital which was extensively damaged during the passage of Hurricane Melissa on Tuesday, October 28. (Photo: JIS)