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Member of Parliament for South St. James, Nekeisha Burchell, is demanding urgent action to strengthen neurosurgical coverage at Cornwall Regional Hospital CRH, warning that western Jamaica cannot continue to depend on a single specialist for a critical, life-saving service.

“Cornwall Regional is a Type A hospital and a major referral centre serving western Jamaica. Yet I am repeatedly advised that it has only one neurosurgeon. That effectively leaves an entire region dependent on the availability of one human being for a critical specialist service. That cannot be an acceptable standard of healthcare.”

Burchell’s call comes as she is tonight trying to assist a constituent, a mother of eight, who suffered a brain bleed following severe hypertension and requires specialist care. She remains at CRH while efforts are being made to secure a bed at a Kingston hospital where the required care can be provided.

“Her family is frightened. Instead of being able to focus entirely on their mother, they are waiting and hoping that a bed can be found in Kingston. I am calling doctors and hospitals trying to help. But what happens to the patient whose family does not know an MP, a doctor or somebody who can make that call?”

Burchell said this is not the first time she has found herself making such calls for constituents requiring urgent specialist intervention.

“When the same problem keeps presenting itself, these are no longer isolated emergencies. We have to confront the system producing them.”

She stressed that neurosurgical care is essential emergency infrastructure and the need for it can arise suddenly for anyone.

“It could be a brain bleed or stroke, a serious motor vehicle crash, a bad fall, a workplace accident or another traumatic injury. These emergencies do not make appointments. You cannot choose the right day or the right weekend to need a neurosurgeon.”

Burchell emphasised that her concern is not with the individual doctor taking leave.

“Neurosurgery is demanding work, and every doctor is entitled to rest and time away. That is precisely why one neurosurgeon cannot constitute reliable coverage for an entire region.”

She said she has been advised that there are known, scheduled periods when the sole neurosurgeon is unavailable.

“If periods of absence are known in advance, then the gaps in coverage are also known in advance. This is not an unforeseen staffing emergency. It is a predictable vulnerability that the health system has a responsibility to plan for.”

Burchell said transferring critically ill patients to Kingston cannot be the routine answer to inadequate specialist coverage in western Jamaica.

“A transfer sounds simple until it is your family. First, another hospital has to have the specialist capacity and a bed to accept the patient. Then the patient has to make the journey across the island. And if your loved one is admitted in Kingston, the family may now have to relocate or travel back and forth to Kingston to support them.”

“For an ordinary family from western Jamaica, that can mean finding somewhere to stay, transportation, meals, time away from work and, in this case, arrangements for eight children, all while dealing with the fear that someone they love is critically ill.”

Burchell said the situation also raises a fundamental question of equity in the public health system.

“Your chance of accessing critical care should not depend on whether Kingston has a bed that night. And it certainly should not depend on whether your family knows somebody who can pick up a telephone on your behalf. The public health system must work just as urgently for the Jamaican who knows nobody.”

She is calling on the Ministry of Health and Wellness and the Western Regional Health Authority to urgently put in place sufficient neurosurgical staffing and backup arrangements to guarantee reliable coverage at CRH.

Burchell is also demanding disclosure of the current neurosurgical staffing complement at CRH, the arrangements in place when the specialist is unavailable, the number of patients who have required transfer because neurosurgical care was unavailable at Cornwall, and what immediate steps are being taken to provide adequate and reliable coverage for western Jamaica.

“A Type A hospital cannot merely carry the designation. It must have the specialist capacity that the designation and the population it serves demand. This is not about one doctor. It is about a system that has allowed the availability of one doctor to determine whether an entire region has access to a critical specialist service.”

“Tonight, there is a mother of eight lying critically ill while her family waits and hopes that a bed can be secured in Kingston. Tomorrow it could be another family. I have made these calls before, and unless this gap is fixed, I will have to make them again.”

“We cannot continue playing Russian roulette with people’s lives. Western Jamaica needs reliable, continuous neurosurgical coverage at Cornwall Regional Hospital. The Government knows the vulnerability. It has a responsibility to fix it.”