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Jamaica’s health care system is woefully short of funding and adequate personnel.

Dilapidated hospitals, leaking roofs, the parlous state of Cornwall Regional Hospital and now the deaths of 14 unborn babies due to an Acinetobacter (bacterial) outbreak over a period of four months at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital are due to underfunding.

The Opposition and the media have made the Minister of Health the sacrificial lamb, but this issue should not be politicised.

Looking to prevent the deadly bacterial outbreak from escalating into national panic, Minister Tufton sought to get the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) on the case to determine just how serious this emergency could become and the impact of its wider ramifications. In other words, conduct a fulsome assessment from an internationally renowned healthcare institution.

Explaining his actions, Tufton said: “I am not going to say that I regret making that call, because I think the panic was not created.

“We live in the cut and thrust of a political environment that sometimes becomes toxic and tit for tat – all of those issues are fair game.”

The People’s National Party (PNP) had to confront a similar issue in 2015 when Dr Fenton Ferguson saw 18 newborns die from Klebsiella pneumoniae under his watch and he was made to fall on his sword.

Now the Opposition is calling for Dr Tufton’s head – an eye for a political eye so to speak.

Ferguson has raised the age-old issue of “colourism”, which is all very trite.

What has to concentrate the mind here is adequate staffing and sufficient funding. This was made patently clear during the COVID pandemic.

Dr Tufton has made endeavours to bring in medical personnel from Cuba and to tap into those who ply their trade in the Diaspora with the CODE CARE initiative.

The Victoria Jubilee Hospital is chronically understaffed, and the deaths are a direct result of that.

“The ratio ideally, in that environment should be one to two; it is hovering around one to seven, one to eight because of the shortage of the specialist nurses for treating that situation within that environment.

“It is a very unfortunate situation, but it is one that we’re trying to cope with. And I think the team up to this point has being doing a good job with the help of PAHO and I can say more,  when I get the PAHO report,” said the minister of health.

The rule of thumb is that a government should spend around five per cent of its total GDP on healthcare. The United States spends about 20 per cent of its budget on its healthcare systems.

This year’s budget sees Jamaica setting aside J$95.1 billion for the Ministry of Health and Wellness, of which $54 billion is provided to the four regional health authorities.

Funding is a major issue.

Adequate funding of Jamaica’s healthcare system is imperative but scant attention has been paid to it. Now there is national revulsion due to this new case of dead babies.

Dr Tufton has belaboured this issue and stresses the need to prioritise sustainable health financing.

“It is time to restructure the health system to achieve a more sustainable financing mechanism and to do so in a way that ensures efficiency and accountability of existing expenditure as well as greater proportional distribution to reflect the increased demands on the system.”

Dr Christopher Tufton, minister of health and wellness, speaking in Parliament earlier this year

Speaking in Parliament earlier this year, he announced: “A close look at the budget of the National Health Fund (NHF) shows that costs have escalated by 139 per cent (J$4.6 Bn in FY 15/16 – $11Bn in FY 21/22, adjusted for COVID) over the last seven years of my tenure, with projections for the next three years suggesting further increases of approximately 30 per cent (2023-$12.75 Bn, 2024-$13.391 Bn, 2025-$14.061Bn).

“At this rate of demand and cost increases to treat over 720,000 Jamaicans served by the NHF, this critical entity will need approximately $40 billion over the next three years or risk being unable to address the needs of Jamaicans suffering from some sort of illness.

“It is time to restructure the health system to achieve a more sustainable financing mechanism and to do so in a way that ensures efficiency and accountability of existing expenditure as well as greater proportional distribution to reflect the increased demands on the system.”