Joseph Cunningham, Gleaner Writer

Dr. Alverston Bailey, president of the Medical Association of Jamaica.

President of the Medical Association of Jamaica (MAJ), Dr. Alverston Bailey has described as "alarming" the Government's plan to conduct "secret investigations" in health facilities to deter "ill treatment" of patients.

In an article published in The Gleaner, on Sunday, Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Carlton Davis was quoted as saying, "certain people are now going on the road. Somebody from the Cabinet Office will actually be sitting in some of these centres for hours to just watch what is going on and report back (and) it will be fed back into the system."

Objecting, Dr. Bailey said, "It is lawful that professionals be audited by their peers on the job. (But) it could bring grave implications if a person or persons who have no idea about the rationale behind the decisions doctors make on the job, are deployed to audit doctors." He argued that lives and careers could be affected by a risky initiative.

Contrary report

While Dr. Bailey said he had no problem with doctors being audited, he took exception to the suggestion that doctors were operating below acceptable standards. He noted that on the contrary, the Ministry of Health was voted the best ministry for 2005/2006 based on a client survey run by Cabinet as part of the public sector modernisation programme.

Referring again to the lead paragraph of the same article dated December 3, Dr. Bailey said," The MAJ regards these allegations with grave disquiet because we are being accused of gross negligence, being loose canons and to be affiliates of widespread malpractice."

The paragraph reads: "Spurred by numerous complaints and overwhelming proof, the Govern-ment has launched a covert surveillance into the ill-treatment of patients at hospitals and health centres in a bid to curb the many unfortunate incidents."

Dr. Bailey added that the MAJ had not received any 'overwhelming proof' or 'numerous complaints' from patients in regards to ill-treatment being meted out to them by health sector workers.