No fall-off in COVID-19 surveilance - Tufton

Health & Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton says he's not aware of a fall-off in COVID-19 surveillance despite the Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) asserting that this has been the case.

NAJ president Patsy Edwards Henry had said the association was concerned about inadequate surveillance and monitoring in recent times.

Dr. Tufton, speaking to Radio Jamaica News, in response, insisted that teams from his ministry have been actively carrying out surveillance in communities across the island.

“What I would say is that we try to rotate our staff as best as possible,” he said, while conceding that “there is some stress and some fatigue…”

He said additional personnel have also been employed to boost the ministry's capacity to conduct surveillance, noting that “it has been long year for them, and to the extent that persons are fatigued or overly stressed, then we have to make some allowances.”

Among those recently employed are nearly a thousand community health aides, and more than 300 medical staff from Cuba, he said.