(Jamaican Observer) – More than half of the 143 doctors who were last month left jobless after their contracts with State-run facilities were not renewed have moved on to brighter prospects, even as the Government — now faced with caseloads which outmatch manpower — says it is heading to Cabinet to get approval to create more posts.
Jamaica Medical Doctors Association (JMDA) President Dr Mindi Fitz-Henley told the Jamaica Observer yesterday that a number of the axed medics have left the country, others have found jobs outside of the public sector, while some were taken back by the Government. She said only 52 doctors of the 143 still remain unemployed.
The revelation comes as the island’s public hospitals have run out of bed spaces allocated for COVID-19 patients amidst a sharp spike in the number of new cases resulting in hospitalisations exceeding staffing capacity.
Yesterday alone saw 316 new cases of the virus being confirmed, bringing to 55,456 the total confirmed cases in the island since the first case was reported last year March. An additional 10 deaths pushed the fatalities so far to 1,241.
For the first eight days of this month, officials have already recorded over 1,903 new cases, making it that the island is averaging 238 cases per day — nearly five times the daily number of cases up to July 13 this year.
The situation is one which Dr Fitz-Henley had, in June, warned would occur in the event the island experienced a surge, even as the doctors faced being axed.
On Monday, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton, responding to Observer queries during a press briefing to announce new pandemic restrictions, said the decision not to re-hire the doctors at the time was not without merit.
“There is a more fundamental issue around numbers of intake versus what the system can cope with based on the established position that is going to require a more deep-rooted, structural organisational assessment,” he said.
In this respect, he said Chief Medical Officer Dr Jacquiline Bisasor McKenzie and a team are conducting the assessment.
“We intend to bring to Cabinet, which will mean creating more posts, reviewing the primary health-care model to add more doctors and that will see greater uptake of some of those individuals and others to come,” the health and wellness minister said.
Reacting to that disclosure yesterday, Dr Fitz-Henley said the Administration did not have much time on its hands, given the situation in the island’s public healthcare facilities.
“We are grateful and hopeful that this can be done expeditiously because we know we have heard this story a few times, but we do understand that it can be done through a needs analysis. The country does have limited resources — we are not trying to pretend like we don’t know that — but based on what we have seen just on the ground in the hospital, we know that there is a need. So, once they can prove it and do it quickly, we are very, very hopeful that we can get some persons back into the health system, we know that it’s necessary,” Fitz-Henley told the Observer.
“Their argument always is that they have to have a needs analysis done to show that it is necessary, but if it is that a few doctors can’t even go on vacation without you being unable to staff a hospital, it goes to show that, without a doubt, additional staff are necessary. Because if two people are missing from one department it cannot be that the department collapses and is unable to care for persons,” she pointed out.
Noting that the scenario she had warned about in June is now manifesting, Fitz-Henley said the planned re-engagement of the 52 doctors, who up to now remain unemployed, sent mixed signals.
“They are going to just take the doctors back on and they are supposed to just accept it, despite previously feeling as though they were expendable. You can imagine how that would have felt, finding out two days before that you won’t have a job, and then now, only when it is that the country is in crisis, you are suddenly necessary again,” she argued.
She said the answer to the needs assessment to be carried out by the ministry to see whether the staff was needed is already plain.
“We do know, without a shadow of a doubt, that, even on a short-term basis, for right now, the surge we are seeing that the current staffing is inadequate. The field hospitals need additional staff,” Fitz-Henley pointed out.
She said the constraints being faced by Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay, for example, are a clear example of the straits facing the island’s hospitals.
“The plan now is to take doctors from Cornwall Regional, which is already understaffed, to put at the field hospital in Montego Bay, so they would now be creating a situation where they have two places that are understaffed. So it’s not a question of whether additional staff is necessary, it’s a question of how quickly will they hire these persons so we can get the system back up and running,” she said.
“You can’t have a field hospital with over 30 beds and just one doctor, and that’s what’s happening. It’s not even good patient care; you can’t physically get to 30 persons if there is an emergency,” the JMDA president added.
“Whatever comes out of the needs analysis, that is what we would welcome. They would have to analyse each location, plus the primary care, which includes the health centres, to be able to see what would be necessary. But we are hopeful that whatever is done will be able to make a significant impact on the health-care system and the way that we are able to care for patients,” she said.
