JAMAICAN health authorities are pleading with members of the public to exercise patience when they visit emergency medical facilities as the triple threat of dengue fever, COVID-19, and the flu place additional stress on the system.

Addressing a post-Cabinet media briefing at Jamaica House on Wednesday, Minister of Health Dr Christopher Tufton pointed out that while COVID-19 is no longer a crisis, the positivity rate in Jamaica is above 10 per cent which is relatively high. He noted that dealing with people who test positive for COVID-19, plus the dengue fever outbreak and the start of the flu season will be a challenge for public emergency medical facilities.

“In normal times we have overcrowding in our hospitals, particularly those in the urban centres… so when you have a spike in a particular area, there is almost automatically going to be a build-up,” said Tufton.

“That triple threat is real, not a need for alarm but it is something to know and to be able to respond,” added Tufton minutes after Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Jacquiline Bisasor-McKenzie had used the post-Cabinet briefing to urge Jamaicans not to rush to emergency public health facilities for minor symptoms of dengue fever.

“At this time we are not only seeing an overload from persons with viral illnesses, but this time of the year we tend to have more persons coming in with uncontrolled non-communicable diseases and the complications thereof.

“We would have started to see the reports that we are experiencing overcrowding, especially in our emergency departments, and that is why the appeal that we also need to visit our primary care centres to take off some of that load,” said Bisasor-McKenzie.

“I think that most hospitals, especially the type B, middle-level regional hospitals, tend to, at this time of the year, really go into facing a burden in terms of the number of persons who are coming in,” added Bisasor-McKenzie as she appealed to people visiting the emergency departments to be patient when awaiting treatment.

The CMO pointed out that the island’s emergency departments usually have a good triage system which is a preliminary assessment of patients to determine the urgency of their need for treatment and the nature of treatment required.

“We are able to pick up those persons who need attention right away, and so sometimes you will see people rush ahead of you, it is because we consider those to be more of an emergency.

“So be patient with us in the emergency departments. This time of the year people tend to become very violent [and] aggressive. They go into the emergency departments, they see the overcrowding [and] the doctors, the nurses, all the people who work in the hospitals are also overwhelmed when they have these large crowds to deal with, and to deal with the aggression on top of it really, really place them in a very bad position,” added Bisasor-McKenzie.

Her plea was echoed by Tufton who pointed out that the medical staff are well equipped to determine what cases are more serious and in need of urgent treatment.

“The fact that you turn up at an emergency ward is not a guarantee that you will get through first. The accident and emergency wards do not…operate on a first come, first served basis. They operate on a severe case basis.

“So it who is greatest in trauma, or most severely affected, or life is being threatened…You come there with a headache, yes, it’s an emergency for you…but it cannot, even if you [are] waiting three hours, you can’t replace somebody who comes with a heart attack or a stroke because there is a time there that could determine life or death,” said Tufton, as he underscored that people will have to wait in emergency wards as long as their needs is not immediately life threatening.

“And you know it is a very emotional thing, because when a parent has a child in his or her arms and they [are] waiting for two hours and the child is miserable…crying…the natural response is to claim cruelty on the part of the institution that their child [is] bawling and they [are] not getting any attention.

“But oftentimes, in the context of the institution, there may be another child in the room who has something stuck in his throat and him can’t breathe, or fall out of a mango tree and is haemorrhaging. Unfortunately, the crying child who may have a discomfort will have to cry until we sort out the child who has [a life-threatening condition],” added Tufton.