The PNP has embarked on a series of protests across the island to highlight issues in the healthcare system. Protesters are calling for the resignation of Dr Christopher Tufton for his silence on the matter of 13 babies dying over a three month period due to a virus outbreak at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital.

DEAD BABIES NO POLITICAL FOOTBALL – KERN

7 Nov 2022/Cecelia Campbell-livingston and Christopher Thomas/ Gleaner Writers

THE MOTHER of a newborn who reportedly lived just a few minutes after birth at the Mandeville Regional Hospital is insistent that her baby would be alive today if medical experts had acted sooner.

The woman, who requested that her name not be published, has charged that her preterm baby perished because of delayed intervention and conflicting advice by doctors on whether labour should be induced.

Three months before the impending local government elections, healthcare and the heart-tugging fault line of dead babies have become the latest political battlefield.

And even though Kern Spencer, chairman of the People’s National Party’s (PNP) Region Five, led a partisan candlelight vigil outside Mandeville Regional Hospital Saturday evening, he has denied that the advocacy about the healthcare standards at maternity wards is a political football.

Spencer denied that he is riding on the issue to drum up support for the party.

“It is the furthest thing from the truth. Everybody is aware that two months ago to three months ago, we carried out some of the most extensive political programmes that the region could have carried out. We completed all 30 divisional conferences. So politics aside, we are ready for any eventuality, whether it is a local government election or national. Tonight is totally different,” he said.

Spencer claimed that the protesters who turned out to Saturday’s vigil were not all affiliated with the PNP’S Region Five – which covers Manchester and St Elizabeth – but included “well-thinking Jamaicans” seeking answers.

Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton has responded sharply to critics calling for his removal following the deaths of 13 neonates, over three months, from a bacterial outbreak at the Victoria Jubilee maternity hospital.

“We do not want to get into a tit-for-tat and a ‘cass-cass,’ nor do we want to be irresponsible, to give an impression that by standing outside a hospital in a black outfit, that it is somehow unsafe to go into the hospital. It is an irresponsible act, and you need to stop it, stop it on behalf of the Jamaican people,” tufton said Sunday evening while addressing a Jamaica Labour Party Area Council Four constituency meeting in Hanover.

“I can only wonder whether or not this organisation is going through a sort of attempt of an exorcism or purge of their own ghosts,” he added, hinting at the Simpson Miller administration’s stripping of then Health Minister Dr Fenton Ferguson of his portfolio in 2015 over a bacterial outbreak that killed 18 babies in 2015.

Tufton has come under fire for not disclosing the outbreak to Prime Minister Andrew Holness and the Cabinet before the story broke in the media.

TRAUMATIC FOR MOTHERS

But beyond the political posturing and drama, the death of a baby is hugely traumatic for formerly hopeful mothers like the one who lost her newborn at Mandeville Regional.

The woman said that she visited a doctor on Thursday who reported that the child’s heartbeat could not be detected.

“The doctor put ‘emergency’ on the paper and sent me over to the hospital with the instruction that they must ‘take me in’,” the woman said in a Gleaner interview.

She said she submitted the document about noon and slept on a bench until the following day about 2 p.m.

By the time labour was induced, it was too late, she said.

“Him just did want come out in time,” she said of her baby. “Mi can’t feel good.

“And then the hotful thing, you know, after the baby died, you know say di people dem come put one babymother beside me with her baby crying,” she said, adding that she was so tormented that she covered her ears with a pillow.

The woman was discharged Saturday evening.

Alwyn Miller, CEO of the hospital, said he could not comment on the case until “more fulsome” information was available but said that clinical experts would be part of any investigation.

Mandeville, like many other hospitals, has staffing challenges from time to time - a concern conceded by Tufton in an analysis of the Victoria Jubilee bacterial outbreak.

“What I will say to you is that we are having above-level occupancy and the maternity ward is about capacity. Generally, we have seen a lot of ill patients coming in above the normal bed capacity of the hospital,” Miller said.

Spencer issued a 48-hour ultimatum at Saturday’s candlelight vigil for the prime minister to address the issue.

“I know that something must be wrong why he cannot be speaking. If we don’t get that address, we will continue into the streets on Monday. The people of St Elizabeth will be at another health institution echoing their voices,” Spencer said.

“... We want the PM to speak to us, we want to hear from the minister of health. We are tired of the silence,” he said.

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