Opposition Leader Mark Golding has described the situation at University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) as a “low point” for one of the region’s most important medical institutions, arguing that the problems exposed by the auditor general reflect a wider failure of accountability under the Andrew Holness Administration.

Speaking during a press conference on Thursday, Golding said the issues now confronting UHWI were not isolated administrative errors, but the result of years of weak governance, political interference, and a lack of transparency.

Golding said the findings of Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis in her special audit report on the hospital confirmed long-standing concerns about management failures across the public health sector. He also pointed to unresolved issues at other major institutions.

“There’s no accountability within the Andrew Holness Administration. We have a minister of health who has gone from one scandal, one massive failing to the next. From the Cornwall Regional Hospital débâcle still unresolved, the dead baby situation and there’s no accountability, and this situation at the University Hospital is one that he cannot wash his hands of,” Golding said.

The auditor general’s report revealed that UHWI failed to submit audited financial statements for several years, did not maintain proper procurement records, and allowed contracts to be awarded without adequate oversight, weaknesses that Golding said could not be ignored.

“The buck stops with the minister. University Hospital is too important to Jamaica’s national development for this to be allowed to go with no one being held accountable. It is just another incident in the litany of malfeasance, of corruption, of nepotism, which has been a feature of the Andrew Holness Government for the last 10-plus years,” he said.

Golding said the Auditor General’s report should serve as a turning point, not another document that gathers dust, warning that continued inaction would erode public trust and further weaken the country’s health system.

“Although the frequency of these incidents is such that people tend to become immune to them, it is our responsibility as the Opposition to bring it to the attention of the people of Jamaica and to frame it in the appropriate context so that people can recognise the dangers of allowing these things to go unchecked without proper accountability for those whose responsibility it is to prevent these things from happening or to take the right steps to move forward and solve them,” he said.