The failings of Jamaica’s health care system is clear for all to see.

Riven by incompetence, corruption, skullduggery and a lack of professionalism, it in itself is a danger to all people requiring medical care.

Now you have both doctors and nurses protesting about deplorable working conditions at Cornwall Regional Hospital, the leading hospital facility in the western end of the country.

The facility is besieged by rats and other vermin with no effort made to upkeep sanitary conditions to treat patients. This will lead to leptospirosis and other diseases and may very well cause a number of lawsuits. 

You go into a Jamaican hospital for treatment and you end up contracting a possibly fatal disease. How can this be? Why did the Minister of Health allow this to get so bad? Who is accountable?

Many of the nurses and doctors protesting are not troublemakers. They are not politically motivated. They are medical professionals who expect a certain standard from the hospitals they work in. 

There is overcrowding at Cornwall Regional Hospital, the situation has become untenable and the Minister of Health has failed to address the situation. The place is in a terrible condition and the Ministry of Health does nothing to put measures in place.

Instead Dr. Tufton says this is due to the impact of Hurricane Melissa which is absolute nonsense. Because of the hurricane, the Cornwall Regional Hospital should have been fortified, resources brought in, as more patients poured through its doors. It was never going to be business as usual.

This ineptitude speaks to gross incompetence and the Prime Minister must now step in and deal with this matter because his Minister of Health is failing the country and is endangering its people.

There has already been financial wastage at the University Hospital of the West Indies due to bad management and a lack of oversight. Why not place resources into Cornwall Regional Hospital to ensure it can care for the sick?

In the twenty-first century, with so-called professionals trumpeting their academic achievements, Jamaica’s leading hospitals are in a total shambles, and the administrators are grossly incompetent. Rat infestations, overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, inadequate roofing, and safety issues. Is this what Jamaicans can expect? Is this the way the Government treats its citizens? Is this the standard people must accept?

There is a particular virulent strain of the flu going around, and Jamaican hospitals are just not up to the task of containing it. The Ministry of Health has no answers, and Dr Tufton can only posture. This is a national crisis, and nothing is being done about it by Dr Tufton and the government. The A&E Department at Cornwall Regional Hospital is in chaos and is totally unfit to handle tourists who have a medical issue.

How did this get so bad? How can a Jamaican hospital not have running water?

Dr Christopher Tufton has provided no answers and has not enacted any solutions. The buck stops with him, and he cannot blame Hurricane Melissa and the increase in the number of patients. His reputation is on the lin,e and questions must be asked of him. His tenure as Minister of Health has been dogged time and time again by controversy. He must act now, not in three weeks time.

Only a failing, third-world country would accept this. Is that what Jamaica is Dr. Tufton? Is that what renders you incapable of remedying this intolerable situation? Can you not call upon competent administrators and professionals and Marshall them into correcting a long-standing calamity? 

Less than five months into this JLP administration, Dr Tufton is undoubtedly the worst-performing minister and has become a liability. His credibility has to be called into question. The UHWI and the Cornwall Regional Hospital catastrophes stand out as glaring shortcomings and took place under his watch. When he looks in the mirror, what does he see? You can’t lie to yourself; the task at hand is beyond you. How many more hits can you take? How many more slip-ups can take place before you are incapable of standing up?