Chen: Bunting using statistics to "create alarm"

 

Wayne Chen, Chairman of the Southern Regional Health Authority, has dismissed claims by Senator Peter Bunting of the opposition People's National Party (PNP) that there has been a surge in deaths among pregnant women and newborns in the region.

 

Bunting, the PNP caretaker for the constituency of Manchester Southern, raised the matter at a party meeting in the parish on Wednesday, said the maternal mortality rate within the georgraphical area covered by the Southern Regional Health Authority (including Mandeville Regional Hospital) is ten times what it was when the PNP left office in 2016.

 

He said the Regional Authority and the Ministry of Health had failed to provide adequate medical care to expectant mothers and infants, leading to several of those deaths.

 

"That is a disgrace, and (for) that alone, they (the governing Jamaica Labour Party) should be voted out of office, he declared.

 

But, Mr Chen, who responded on Friday, in an interview with Radio News, defended the work of the medical staff in the region to  protect the lives of mothers and their newborns, saying "It is unfortunate that Senator Bunting has chosen to use statistics to create alarm."

 

"What he has failed to mention is that the base year that he's referring to showed that the Southern Region actually had the lowest rate of maternal mortality in Jamaica, so it was starting from a very low base, " he said, while also expressing regret at "every unnecessary death in our system."

 

In defence of  the Regional Health Authority's overall performancee, he highlighted the fact three members of its team won "three significant awards" at the recently held Public Sector Excellence Awards, "not just for the Ministry of Health, but for overall government customer service excellence."