Dear Editor,
After last evening's really poor national broadcast by Health Minister Dr Fenton Ferguson, I am beginning to wonder why such the large and complex Ministry of Health does not have at least one minister of state. I see where the industry and commerce, tourism, energy and mining and foreign affairs ministries, for example, have state ministers.
With the chikungunya epidemic causing wrenching problems everywhere, and the minister unable to manage the situation, I would have thought that the prime minister would at least see to making some changes and also add a state minister. This is even more urgent given the fact that our hospitals are in a dire state and look to be failing under the stress of limited resources, poor management, and in your face bad leadership coming from the ministry itself.
For Minister Ferguson, as one man who now has public knowledge that he is far from ideal management material, to bear all this stress is, to me, unfair.
To go further, I also believe that a management review of the ministry is also timely as I saw for myself that the ministry's most senior administrators, Marion Ducasse-Bullock — who has got very quiet now — and Kevin Harvey seemed to have bungled in the handling of chikungunya. The Cabinet secretary might wish to do some good by having a forensic look at the ministry and see to whether the best personnel are there to support the minister in his efforts and see to the better running of our crucial health affairs.
While Dr Ferguson must share in the blame for the poor management, given his position as minister, we must also take a look at what he has to work with.
Renee Sewell
Coral Gardens
St James
sewellrenee@hotmail.com
Appoint a health minister of state
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After last evening's really poor national broadcast by Health Minister Dr Fenton Ferguson, I am beginning to wonder why such the large and complex Ministry of Health does not have at least one minister of state. I see where the industry and commerce, tourism, energy and mining and foreign affairs ministries, for example, have state ministers.
With the chikungunya epidemic causing wrenching problems everywhere, and the minister unable to manage the situation, I would have thought that the prime minister would at least see to making some changes and also add a state minister. This is even more urgent given the fact that our hospitals are in a dire state and look to be failing under the stress of limited resources, poor management, and in your face bad leadership coming from the ministry itself.
For Minister Ferguson, as one man who now has public knowledge that he is far from ideal management material, to bear all this stress is, to me, unfair.
To go further, I also believe that a management review of the ministry is also timely as I saw for myself that the ministry's most senior administrators, Marion Ducasse-Bullock — who has got very quiet now — and Kevin Harvey seemed to have bungled in the handling of chikungunya. The Cabinet secretary might wish to do some good by having a forensic look at the ministry and see to whether the best personnel are there to support the minister in his efforts and see to the better running of our crucial health affairs.
While Dr Ferguson must share in the blame for the poor management, given his position as minister, we must also take a look at what he has to work with.
Renee Sewell
Coral Gardens
St James
sewellrenee@hotmail.com
Appoint a health minister of state
-->