According to Senator Peter Bunting, Leader of Opposition Business in the Senate, Jamaica’s public health care system is in its worst shape since independence.
Bunting claims that the current state of the public health system is deplorable and the most run-down it has been in decades.
Senator Bunting commented during his recent contribution to the State of the Nation Debate in the Senate, where he highlighted video clips of hospital patients with drip needles in their arms, lying in passageways and on wooden benches, or sitting up in chairs for days “waiting on a bed to free up.”
“And I don’t rely solely on social media. I recently visited a university student who had been taken to Mandeville Regional Hospital and was horrified that, after three days, she was still in the casualty waiting area where conditions appeared similar to the pictures of hospitals we see in Gaza or some other war zone,” Bunting added.
Peter Bunting
According to Bunting, the awful scenes have become commonplace on social media.
Bunting scolded Health and Wellness Minister Dr. Christopher Tufton for “engaging” in public relations rather than finding solutions to the problems.
The Opposition senator referred to the Cornwall Regional Hospital renovation as the “Mother of all cost overruns.”
“It started with a budget of $2 billion and a timeline of a year (but) it has now reached $14 billion and seven years. Both cost and completion time continue to escalate,” said Bunting.
Peter Bunting
He also noted that there has been no promised expansion at the Bustamante Hospital for Children, and he pointed to “improper meddling and ministerial interference” in the operations of the University Hospital of the West Indies.
Bunting alleges that cronyism is rampant.
He stated that public relations is the one area where the Minister of Health and Wellness is best in class.
There may be no budget to maintain the hospital equipment, but billions are always available to create the image that Minister Tufton – ‘Minister MarketMe’ – is a performer.
All information from the MOHW is accompanied by the minister’s image delivering or accompanying the message. In that regard, the Minister of Tourism (Edmund Bartlett) runs a close second.