On Thursday, September 14, we published as our Letter of the Day, the observations of a visitor from Canada who had returned home to see her mother being attended in the Kingston Public Hospital. The writer reported being appalled at the deplorable conditions of sections of the hospital - leaking roofs, broken windows and an infestation of flies and cockroaches.

This past week, senior medical doctors in the public health system went public to highlight an even more appalling state of affairs at the neighbouring Victoria Jubilee Hospital. Not only were there the perennial problems of inadequate personnel and equipment, but also an infestation of flies, cockroaches and bird droppings. By any criteria, this is scandalous.

We note that the Prime Minister has ordered a probe into the state of affairs at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital. It seems that she has taken to ordering probes the same way her predecessor would set up committees only to ignore their findings.

The doctors have already indicated that they had written to the Ministry of Health on more than one occasion pointing out the many problems with which hospital staff and patients were grappling. These conditions are easily verifiable. Is another probe really necessary?

The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Grace Allen-Young, does not help the situation by making facetious comments such as were reported in yesterday's Gleaner. In response to a reporter's query about the roach infestation, she is quoted as having asked whether the reporter did not have cockroaches at home. Whether said tongue-in-cheek or not, it was an inappropriate response to a serious query.

At the best of times, it may be difficult to keep buildings cockroach-free, but hospitals are not expected to harbour them as a matter of course - not to mention flies and pigeons flitting in and out to defecate at will. Hospitals are supposed to be clean environments precisely because people come in to them with all sorts of ailments and are more vulnerable to further problems if not treated quickly and adequately.

The problems highlighted this past week point possibly to a breakdown in management at the local level for this to have persisted, forcing the Medical Association of Jamaica to sound the alarm; and at the national level, to the terrible price the country is paying for the high debt burden and wanton waste of resources in the public sector.

With little or no money to address critical areas such as hospitals, the country will eventually pay the price in a breakdown in public health standards.

There also remain some questions to be answered. A few years ago, the Ministry of Health outsourced the cleaning and maintenance of public hospitals to a private company. Is this company or any other still contracted to the government? Are the hospital management personnel satisfied that where cleaning and sanitation problems exist that these are beyond the ability and or responsibility of the private company to address?

The nation's public hospital system is too important to be treated as an afterthought.

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