Dawes demands end to ‘patch and pray’ approach to surgical infrastructure collapse

Kingston Public Hospital and Bustamante Hospital operating Theatres shuttered again, Ministry chooses PR over performance

Dr Alfred Dawes, Opposition Spokesman on Health and Wellness, today called for decisive action to address the critical failure of surgical services at two of Jamaica’s flagship public health institutions, as operating theatres at Kingston Public Hospital and Bustamante Hospital for Children remain offline due to recurring infrastructure failures.

“We are witnessing the same crisis, the same pattern, and the same inadequate response,” Dr. Dawes stated. “Surgeries are being cancelled. Lifesaving medical missions hang in the balance. And once again, our staff and our patients are paying the price for a government that refuses to do the work.”

The current shutdown mirrors a cycle the Ministry of Health has repeated relentlessly:

When Dr Dawes raised alarm last year over operating theatre failure at Bustamante Hospital for Children, the Ministry responded not with remediation but with a carefully managed public relations exercise, relocating select cases to the University of the West Indies while leaving the underlying infrastructure untouched. The result: today’s collapse.

When mould was discovered growing in the operating theatres and ICU at Kingston Public Hospital, the Ministry initially denied the severity, promised reopening within two weeks, then executed a cosmetic solution, painting over the problem without confirming mould remediation. No definitive corrective work followed. Only an announcement of resumed services is designed for the evening news.

Now, those same theatres are shuttered again, contaminated again, and patients are suffering again.

“This is not crisis management,” Dr Dawes said. “This is crisis patching up dressed up as competence.”

Operating theatre failures cascade through the entire health system:

• Surgical backlogs grow while patients wait in pain
• Staff work under conditions that compromise both their safety and clinical outcomes
• Lifesaving interventions are postponed or cancelled
• Public confidence in our health institutions erodes further

The root causes are systemic: malfunctioning air conditioning units, mold infiltration, and infrastructure that has been neglected so thoroughly that patch jobs have become the default response.

Dr Dawes is calling on the government to commit to definitive remedial work, not announcements, not temporary fixes, not public relations campaigns.

“The Jamaican people deserve more than promises,” Dr Dawes said. “They deserve operating theatres that are safe, functional, and staffed with people who are not working under threat. They deserve a Ministry of Health that invests in permanence, not performance.”

He is calling on all Jamaicans to hold this government accountable and to demand that the Ministry of Health:

1. Commission an independent assessment of infrastructure at both institutions
2. Develop and publish a detailed remediation timeline with measurable milestones
3. Allocate adequate resources for definitive corrective work
4. Provide regular public updates on progress
5. Ensure that surgical services are restored to full capacity with confirmed safety protocols

“Our operating theatres should not be a recurring crisis,” Dr Dawes concluded. “They should be the foundation of our health system. It is time to stop the cycle. It is time to do the work.”