Advice contained in a story headlined ‘Safety plea’ on page 18 of the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday should be taken to heart by everyone.

To summarise, chief executive officer of Mandeville Regional Hospital Mr Alwyn Miller confirmed to our reporter what many people already knew — that the hospital is full way beyond its capacity.

That’s because of hurricane damage to health facilities, drastically reducing services in the west and north of the country, causing the injured and ailing from as far away as Westmoreland to be transported to Mandeville.

In normal circumstances, Mandeville Regional would be catering for patients from Manchester, neighbouring St Elizabeth, and Clarendon. The destruction of Black River Hospital by huge tidal waves, described by some as a mini tsunami, immediately meant, according to Mr Miller, that 67 patients had to be transferred from there to Mandeville Regional.

Additionally, patients came from, and are coming from Westmoreland, southern St James, southern Trelawny, and southern St Ann.

While most of the original group from Black River Hospital had since been discharged, up to earlier this week approximately 15 patients from Black River were still at Mandeville Regional.

Mr Miller said those realities meant that Mandeville Regional Hospital was at 45 per cent above its normal bed capacity of 226.

“Most days we have 320-plus patients admitted in the hospital,” the veteran administrator said.

Obviously, no healthy person in mind and body wants to be in a hospital bed. But given the situation at Mandeville Regional, Mr Miller obviously felt the urgent need to underline the obvious.

Said he: “This is not a time to be frivolous and to sustain any sort of injury that may require hospital admission, so we ask the public to help us in this regard.”

Like other Jamaicans, Mr Miller probably reeled on hearing of Wednesday afternoon’s crash on the P J Patterson Highway which left five people dead and 15 in Spanish Town Hospital.

We can’t say if frivolity or carelessness of any sort had any part in the tragedy. We hear that preliminary reports suggest that a tyre on the crashed minibus blew out, which immediately reminds us that not just carelessness at the wheel but other factors such as vehicular defects, including badly-worn tyres, can have disastrous consequences.

For that reason, motor vehicle operators, not least those in public transportation, must ensure their vehicles are roadworthy at all times. Prospective passengers must also exercise care.

Crucially, police and representatives of the Road Traffic Authority must be ever diligent.

And while we have no evidence that exceeding the 110km/h speed limit on the P J Patterson Highway may have contributed to the latest tragedy, we all know that such behaviour is the cause of many such crashes, tireless road safety advocate Dr Lucien Jones is constantly reminding us.

In that respect, we note a worrying trend since Hurricane Melissa. We speak of official missions, sometimes including large vehicles packed with relief items under police escort, sirens blaring, travelling at breakneck speed.

The urgent need for relief to reach hurricane victims expeditiously can’t be overemphasised. But also, everyone, not just ordinary folk, needs to be cautious.

We all need to “tek sleep mark death”.