The People’s National Party (PNP) is reiterating its call for the urgent establishment of a field hospital facility to receive COVID-19 patients.
The party’s shadow minister on health, Dr Morais Guy, said that the Holness government must stop diddling around and act now to protect the lives of the Jamaican people by at least expanding the provision of public health services.
According to Guy, this must begin with the immediate setting up of a field facility as it is already late.
Guy further recommended that the 120 doctors who the government is yet to offer employment be engaged in the field facility.
According to the PNP, this situation at the hospitals “untenable” as it said it “impairs the services that this institution offers for non-coronavirus cases”.
“The UHWI, with the island’s largest Intensive Care Unit and experts on staff, is under stress, it means that in very short order, the entire public health system will be overwhelmed,” Dr. Guy said.
“Clearly the government did not listen to the experts, neither did they read the obvious warning signs as by their own tardiness they have put people’s lives at risk,” added Guy.
The PNP said in the past week, some 700 persons had tested positive for the coronavirus, with over 1000 hospitalised, as the surge in infections rages on.
“The fact that the nation saw a 63 per cent jump in the number of infections, in a single week, speaks to the rapidity of the spread island wide,” added the party in the release.
Guy also used the occasion to remind members of the public to follow the protocols of mask-wearing, hand sanitising and physical distancing and not take anything for granted as hospital bed space fills up, and the public health system begins to buckle under pressure.
