Chief Medical Officer Dr. Bisasor McKenzie, speaking at a COVID Conversations press briefing on Thursday
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Dr. Jacquiline Bisasor McKenzie
The Ministry of Health has said it will be very difficult to determine whether any deaths were caused by the oxygen shortage in Jamaica's public hospitals at the end of August.
Chief Medical Officer Dr. Bisasor McKenzie disclosed that from August 1 to September 8, there were 465 coronavirus-related deaths, with another 109 deaths under investigation.
She said the increase in deaths corresponds with a rise in the number of COVID-19 cases.
The CMO said the ministry is continuing to collect information from the hospitals, especially regarding the deaths which occurred on August 27 and 28, at the height of the oxygen shortage.
"During the period when some hospitals were affected by reduced oxygen supplies, the public can be assured that all measures were put in place by the management teams to provide support to our patients. The pathology of severe COVID, however, is such that most deaths are going to result from respiratory failure or multi-organ involvement and hence, it will be difficult to say that a cause of death was due to reduced oxygen supplies," Dr. Bisasor McKenzie sought to explain.
The Parliamentary Opposition has called for an urgent independent probe into reports of deaths arising from the oxygen shortage.
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