Health Minister Dr. Christopher Tufton is coming under heavy fire from the Opposition People's National Party (PNP) following the Auditor General report which revealed governance and accountability gaps during a performance audit of the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI).
In the report, Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis, said the UHWI should immediately cease facilitating imports for private entities using its tax-exempt status.
Among other things, the report also found that UHWI awarded 51 contracts totalling $521 million for which the Auditor General found no procurement documentation.
In response, Dr. Tufton announced the establishment of an institutional review committee to address issues flagged in the report.
However, Opposition Spokesperson on Health Dr. Alfred Dawes argued that the Minister has sought to sidestep accountability in the matter.
Dr. Dawes accused him of engaging in public relations rather than having the political will to insist on effecting the reforms recommended by the Auditor General's Department.
"The minister has repeatedly distanced himself from what is happening at the University Hospital and he has basically passed blame on the departmental heads. And we cannot allow this to happen another time. We cannot allow the deflection and the distraction...to take away from the substantive issues," he demanded.
Dr. Dawes suggested that, while it may have appeared that the Health Minister was taking decisive action by quickly announcing a panel to review the operations of UHWI, this is not the case.
"It seems genuine when you look at it, that we're seeing the report coming out and then the minister taking decisive action less than 24 hours later. But they knew about the report from last year. Why wasn't this panel announced last year? Because the panel is only to serve as a distraction, for you to wait four months, lose interest, and then you will move on to another scandal somewhere - maybe Cornwall Regional - and then this matter would die a slow and painful death," he contended.
The Human Resource and Information Communication Technology Subcommittee convened an investigative sitting on November 12 last year in response to issues flagged in the Auditor General's report.
It was directed by the UHWI Board to determine whether human resource breaches or governance or failures contributed to the significant procurement, financial management and control
issues.
A report on the investigative sitting was seen by Radio Jamaica News.
Dr. Dawes said the hospital has been in a death spiral in recent years, and if the gaps are not addressed, the regional institution could collapse.
The opposition spokesman was speaking at a press conference on Thursday.
Opposition Leader Mark Golding, who also spoke at the press conference, levied criticism against Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness for failing to hold Dr. Tufton to account.
He argued that under Dr. Tufton, the Health Ministry has been a magnet for scandals.
"There's no accountability within the Andrew Holness administration. We have a Minister of Health who has gone from one scandal, one massive failing to the next - from the Cornwall Regional Hospital debacle, still unresolved; the dead baby situation, and there's no accountability. And this situation at the University Hospital is one that he cannot wash his hands of, the reason being that he was responsible for disbanding the Board of the Hospital that had commenced a process of getting the systems, the governance and the management of the hospital into a state of good order," he contended.
