Michael Abrahams | No, Minister

On July 1 in this newspaper, in a letter to the editor titled “I am equally disappointed Drs Rattray and Abrahams,” Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton responded to recent articles written by me and my colleague Dr Garth Rattray in which we expressed dissatisfaction with the state of our health sector and his management of it. In the minister’s response, he claimed that “less than thorough analysis, half-truths, and anecdotes have been allowed to be portrayed as facts”, referred to “serious and faulty allegations”, and expressed his difficulty in separating “the politics from the policies”. He also referred to “egregious misrepresentation” in the pieces, “moreso” in my article.

Unfortunately, I find Dr Tufton’s pronouncements to be not only dismissive, condescending, and arrogant but also disingenuous. I fact-checked everything I wrote in my story. I challenge the minister, or anyone else, to point out any inaccuracies in the article.

For example, it is a fact that the auditor general has repeatedly flagged his ministry. (https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20240620/tardy-accounts...) Dr Tufton dismissed this concern, saying that “the appropriations accounts have been delayed due to incomplete information and systems failures affecting multiple ministries”. This is a flimsy excuse. A “system failure” cannot be reasonably blamed for the ministry awarding contracts without putting them out to tender and not following procurement procedures, and there is evidence of these wrongdoings.

FAIL TO SEE INFRACTION

According to Dr Tufton, my “most egregious infraction” was my “conclusion around Archers Funeral Home”. However, I fail to see any “infraction” on my part. It is a fact that the contract to collect bodies from Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) was awarded to Archer’s Funeral Home in Spanish Town and that it is owned by a councillor in a division in Dr Tufton’s constituency, and I expressed discomfort with that.

Health is defined as physical, mental, and social well-being. The bodies removed from the KPH are lifeless, but the loved ones they leave behind are living beings. They are grieving. Many are impoverished and struggle even to afford funeral costs, and sending them 18 miles away from the hospital to look about the remains of their loved ones has the potential to add to their stress and affect various aspects of their well-being.

Decisions made by the Ministry of Health and Wellness should aim to make people’s lives easier, not harder. Last time I checked, over 30 funeral homes were listed in Kingston and St Andrew. If the minister genuinely cared about the well-being of the poor and vulnerable, other arrangements would have been made. The ministry is flexible when it wants to be. After all, they have awarded contracts without putting them out to tender such as the one granted to Market Me for the Jamaica Moves programme. (https://radiojamaicanewsonline.com/local/not-the-normal-process-ps-conce...)

Regarding Cornwall Regional Hospital, the minister said I “clearly demonstrated limited understanding between rescoping a project and cost overrun”. At no point did I refer to an “overrun”. I said the budget skyrocketed from $2 billion to over $21 billion and that the project remained unfinished, and those are factual statements. (https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20230305/timeline-cornw...) (https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20240215/revised-cost-cornwall-...)

On the other hand, misinforming a woman about a vaccine (as he did), including telling her that there were no deaths associated with it - when there were - in an attempt to coerce her into taking it, is dishonest behaviour unbecoming of someone charged with managing our health. (https://youtu.be/35cIrrE3vU8?si=uGhNm_k2Uq8fwSFt) His stubborn refusal to answer a question, raised in Parliament about when he first heard about a bacterial outbreak that killed nine babies is also unacceptable. (https://www.youtube.com/live/Ph3d4_CxHMM?si=R1oRNt_LN5PvmIYn) And the US travel advisory cautioning Americans about visiting our country because of our substandard health system is a damning indictment of the management of our health sector. (https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladviso... )

MATERNAL MORTALITY RATE

As for our maternal mortality rate, I am deeply concerned. For a pregnant or recently delivered woman in 2022, when the rate was 156.7 (per 100,000 live births), to be at greater risk of dying than in the 1980s when I was in medical school is alarming. In the country’s Southern Region, the rate had increased from 26.8 in 2017 to 273.0 in 2022. In other words, a pregnant or recently delivered woman in this part of the country in 2022 was 10 times more likely to die then than five years before. And we cannot blame COVID-19 for this. Not only was it not a significant contributing factor in 2022, but the rate was even higher in 2019 at 163.5, the second highest on record this century, and the first case of COVID-19 in Jamaica was not documented until March the following year. (https://www.moh.gov.jm/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Files-MOHW-Cloud_.pdf)

What is most disconcerting is Dr Tufton’s remark about his “difficulty in separating the politics from the policies”. During the last People’s National Party (PNP) administration, I publicly expressed a lack of confidence in Health Minister Fenton Ferguson during his tenure. I felt so strongly about the matter that I wrote an article titled “#FireFenton”, published in The Gleaner on November 1, 2015. In fact, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the PNP was criticising his management of the crisis, I defended Dr Tufton and made a post on my social media pages chiding the PNP and remarking that “comparing Christopher Tufton with Fenton Ferguson is like comparing Superman with SpongeBob”.

We all have the right to express concern about the state of our health sector and its management irrespective of whichever party is in power. It is unfortunate that the minister chose to trivialise, dismiss, and politicise legitimate concerns expressed by Dr Rattray and me, two physicians with 78 years of experience between us. Instead of counterpunching, deflecting, grandstanding, and embarking on a public-relations tour (complete with testimonials from satisfied patients at public hospitals) to convince Jamaicans that he is doing a great job and that things are not that bad, it would be in the best interest of the nation for the minister to humble himself and seriously consider the issues raised by me and my colleague.

Michael Abrahams is an obstetrician and gynaecologist, social commentator and human-rights advocate. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and michabe_1999@hotmail.com, or follow him on X , formerly Twitter, @mikeyabrahams.