More Jamaicans dying each year, records show
Published:Sunday | October 3, 2021 | 3:05 AMCorey Robinson - Senior Staff Reporter
If you get the feeling more Jamaicans have been dying in recent years, you may be on to something.
But while records for the last decade have reflected an overall increase in local morbidity numbers, the unpredictability of the looming COVID-19 pandemic remains a dark discourse for many Jamaicans.
According to data from the Registrar General’s Department (RGD), at the lowest end, in 2012, there were 16,999 deaths compared to a 2019 peak of 20,936 fatalities. Overall, 10,692 more people died in the five years leading up to 2019 than those who passed away in the corresponding period prior.
And this was long before COVID-19 came in early 2020 – a year for which the RGD has reported an unofficial 18,073 deaths.
This 2020 figure, however, does not account for deaths involving the police matters – for example, the 1,323 people murdered that year, 412 killed in road accidents and 115 fatal shootings and suicides.
Additionally, only 213 of the 1,869 people killed by COVID-19 thus far are included in that number. The rest of the coronavirus deaths fall in the 2021 data that is still being tabulated, explained RGD representatives.
They listed diabetes mellitus (2,654), cerebrovascular disease (2,361), hypertensive diseases (1,690), ischaemic heart disease (1,557), assault (114) and malignant neoplasm of the prostate (714) as the top causes of death in Jamaica in 2019.
HIV (445), malignant neoplasm of the breast (409) and pneumonia (409) were at the tail end of the top 15 causes; and most of the casualties recorded for 2019 were of persons between 50 and 90.
Whatever the tally in 2021, however, that figure should reflect a vicious COVID-19 pandemic, now in its third wave, and more than 1,053 homicides – an increase of 10 per cent compared to last year.
Elderly hardest hit
These numbers carry different implications for varied sections of society. The elderly group seem the hardest hit as 46 members of the Caribbean Community of Retired Persons (CCRP), for example, have died from either COVID-19, cancer or other illnesses in the past year.
“We are in the older age cohort, the 50-plus, and most of our members are over 60,” explained Jean Lowrie-Chin, founder and executive chairman of the CCRP. “Additionally, we did not have the vaccines initially, so several of those persons had not been vaccinated.
“The whole COVID situation has been affecting our elders – being isolated, not being able to go to church. Physically, I think it has affected them,” she told The Sunday Gleaner, citing isolation and stress as common factors.
But it is not just the elderly who are victims, offered family therapist Dr Beverly Scott, who is based in St James, where the security forces battle a runaway homicide tally of 107 this year.
“Some families have lost three, four persons per household, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, to COVID-19,” charged Scott. “And, if you add those deaths and the deaths by violence here in the west, it has been creating a lot of anxiety and hopelessness for some families. Some people are fearful for their lives.
“It has made others irrational. ... Some people have become numb and some are having heart attacks, sudden deaths, because of the stress of the pandemic,” she noted, referencing a 40-odd-year-old man who last week fell ill and died in the parish mysteriously.
It was not confirmed whether an increased number of Jamaicans were falling ill and dying from stress-related complications or if any of the top 15 causes of death were exacerbated because of COVID-19 fatigue.
But the suspension of some elective surgeries, and resource and staff shortages at hospitals, conjure up a reasonable hypothesis. In some cases, people suffering chronic illnesses like hypertension have also been hit hard by the pandemic, offered male mental health nurse Odean Simpson, who serves communities in Mandeville.
non-emergency services
The suspension of some non-emergency services at hospitals could also be adding to this year’s death tally, though officials were slow to admit it.
“Because of COVID-19, we were forced to reduce our offering to the public,” explained Kevin Allen, CEO of the University Hospital of the West Indies. “The clinics were cut by 50 per cent and I believe surgeries were also cut to accommodate what people are going through.
“Additionally, because people come up here and the word is that at the university [hospital], there are a lot of COVID cases, we also find that some are staying away from the hospital until things cool down. But we are still offering care to ordinary Jamaicans,” he said.
For outspoken Bishop Rowan Edwards of the Lighthouse Assembly of God, these are just the beginning of a prophecy outlined in the Bible many years ago, and the death numbers, he said, will rise exponentially in coming months.
“If you look at it from a prophetic standpoint, you will know that all of this that is happening is prophetic,” Edwards argued. “The Bible is the most current and most read book in the world, and, all over, people are clamouring to get a Bible because they know the importance of the prophetic utterances that are in there. I’m telling you, more is coming. There’s a horse that is being ridden right at this moment – a red horse – and he is wearing a garment of death.”