Concerns have been and continue to be expressed about the Constitutional Reform Committee which was established last month. Some of those concerns include what access the Jamaican public will have to the workings of the Committee, via the broadcasting of its meetings and the publication of its minutes, for example. The level and type of public consultation that will take place is also being questioned, particularly as the Minister of Legal & Constitutional Affairs who is co-chair of the Committee, Minister Malahoo-Forte, has said that she plans to table the draft Bill in Parliament next month – in May.
Last week Wednesday (April 19, 2023), the TVJ programme All Angles focused on aspects of the Constitutional Reform Committee and its work. Host Dionne Jackson Miller had as panelists on the programme Minister Malahoo-Forte and Senator Scott-Mottley, a member of the Committee. (Carol Narcisse was also to join the discussion by Zoom, but because of technical difficulties affecting the sound was unable to.)
At one point in the discussion Senator Scott-Mottley referred to a large volume of background documents provided to members of the Committee & on Twitter I suggested that those documents could be shared online with the public.
Along the same lines, earlier this month I had wondered whether the minutes of the Committee meetings would be made public. I am certainly not the only person thinking this should be done.
Last week Thursday (April 20, 2023), I made the following two Access to Information requests to the Ministry of Legal and Constitutional Affairs:
For copies of the background documents mentioned by Senator Scott-Mottley that had been provided to members of the Constitutional committee
For copies of the minutes of all meetings held to date by the Constitutional Reform Committee established in 2023.
On Sunday (April 23, 2023), I received an email response from the Ministry, providing 27 documents –
“See below background documents which were provided to the members of the Constitutional Reform Committee (CRC)…”
– as well as a copy of the Terms of Reference of the Committee.
I also received the following commitment – “Please note that the Minutes are being reviewed and will be shared after they have been confirmed.”
No timeline was given for this, however, so I will wait to see when they are provided and whether there are any redactions.
(As an aside, I must say that this is one of the quickest ATI responses I have ever received.)
I am not seeing the Committee’s background documents posted on the Ministry’s website, which would really be a good idea. In the meantime, I have posted them below and have grouped them for convenience.
In a recent discussion with Dionne Jackson Miller on Beyond the Headlines on RJR (January 24, 2023), Dr Barbara Carby made some comments that have stayed with me. Dr Carby is a disaster mitigation and sustainable development expert and a former head of Jamaica’s Office of Disaster Preparedness & Emergency Management (ODPEM). Ms Jackson Miller was discussing the problem of substandard building blocks, which had been highlighted in a Gleaner article by Jovan Johnson published on December 25, 2022 – Poor-quality building blocks: High percentage of substandard products on the market a “public safety” concern.
About the substandard building blocks, Dr Carby had this to say:
“I view this matter very seriously and I’ll tell you perhaps my major concern. We’re talking about building blocks, right? We are not properly regulating the sector. We’re not doing appropriate monitoring and enforcement. So that’s one element of the whole building and construction. But here is the issue. We are failing at other spots along the continuum as well. So we don’t enforce and monitor where people put what kind of building. Hence we have buildings on steep slopes, faulted areas, gully banks and all of that. So we’re not doing that. Then certainly for the informal sector, as we call it, we don’t actually monitor the quality of the construction. So the person could be using substandard blocks; they could be using a substandard concrete mix to fill the blocks. They could be putting steel in all the wrong places and at the wrong intervals to then confer some sort of earthquake resistance on the building. So you see it’s a series of things going on which, at the end, all could add up to a major disaster if we had an earthquake.”
Dr Barbara Carby in interview with Dionne Jackson Miller, Beyond the Headlines, RJR, January 24, 2023
Dr Carby went on from there to make a broader point about systemic negligence on the part of the Jamaican State:
“I call it the compounding of negligence by the State, because the State is supposed to be monitoring and regulating all of that. And, Dionne, for me it’s part of a larger systemic issue, right? It is the obligation of the State to protect its citizens and it seems to me that in Jamaica the State has totally abdicated that responsibility.
“We have seen it in environment, right? People have to take the State to court. We see it in the development sector. Citizens Associations have to be begging state agencies to enforce laws. We see it in the transport sector, which is chaos. And the most now recent and most high profile example of course is the financial sector. We have to get our governance going properly. The State cannot continue to have this, what I call a very cavalier attitude towards the enforcement of its own laws, updating of laws and bringing them into the twenty – which century are we in?….the twenty-first century, Dionne. We cannot continue like this! We’re over sixty years old!”
As above
Dr Carby mentioned a number of situations in which the Jamaican State has failed and continues to fail in its duty to protect its citizens. There are others.
Having spoken a bit about the need for accountability in the current issue regarding the report on substandard building blocks, Dr Carby commented on the importance of public education, something that is relevant to many other aspects of state responsibility:
“One area which is sadly lacking, I think as well, is public education. We need to let the public know the situation and what they can use what types of blocks for. If you are building a house, ask for the Bureau of Standards stamp, approval for that operation, you know? So a lot of it is an aware public that can help the enforcement, the monitoring, the identification and so on; use the public.”
As above
We need to keep looking at the systemic patterns, at the ways in which negligence by the State already affects people and the ways in which it could affect people in the future. We need to look at why these patterns exist. We need to keep connecting the dots.
Concluding comments
The issue of substandard building blocks is not a new one. For example, in 2015, there was this article in the Gleaner: Poor quality building blocks a major concern – BSJ. And here we are 7 years later…
The concerns about the consequences we could face in the event of an earthquake have particular resonance at the moment with the news of the terrible destruction and loss of life that has occured because of the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria this week. The pain and suffering being experienced now is hard to contemplate. I hope that help needed now and in the longer term will be forthcoming.
Yesterday Jamaica’s Ministry of Health and Wellness issued a press release stating that the country’s public hospitals would be accepting emergency cases only, until further notice. The large number of people confirmed with or suspected of having Covid-19 who need hospitalisation has resulted in the hospitals exceeding their Covid-19 isolation capacity. So other hospital spaces and resources have to be dedicated to treating people with Covid-19. General hospital service has been suspended, including elective surgeries, and people who can be cared for at home are being discharged. The Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr Bisasor-McKenzie, is quoted as saying that “The rising demand for oxygen also threatens to overwhelm the supply.”
Curiously, this press release has not (yet) been posted on the MOHW website.
This decision by the MOHW signals that the country has entered into a new phase in the 3rd wave of Covid infections in Jamaica but it does not come as a surprise if you have been following the news and numbers in the past couple of months. And the news and numbers over the last week or two have clearly shown the deepening crisis.
People in government and outside of government have been speaking about the increasing numbers of Covid-19 cases, the increasing numbers of hospital admissions, the pressure for space within the hospitals, the pressure on staff within the hospitals. These comments and information have come through official statements at government press conferences, through media interviews, in press releases, on social media.
A small sampling of examples…
Dr Melody Ennis of MOHW was speaking with Dionne Jackson Miller on RJR
Nurse Patsy Edwards-Henry, President of Jamaica Nurses Association, was speaking with Sanjay Lewis on Power 106
MOHW PS Dunstan Bryan speaking with RJR
Slide shown at OPM press conference on August 9, 2021, while PM Andrew Holness spoke & said “I want us to pay attention to this graph. It shows our daily confirmed cases of Covid-19 in blue, while the red line shows the 7-day moving average of new hospitalisations. You can see that our daily hospital admissions are now at the same level as our previous peak in March/April 2021. We now have approximately 500 of 700 beds allocated for Covid-19 occupied islandwide and a number of our large hospitals are over capacity.” (Transcribed from PBCJ recording of OPM press conference, August 9, 2021.)
Slide presented at MOHW press conference August 12, 2021. CMO Dr Bisasor-McKenzie said: “We can see now, compared to last week, that our bed occupancy now is at over 600 beds occupied with both confirmed cases and suspected cases…Our peak, March/April, we were at just over 700 and now we are just over 600.” (Transcribed from PBCJ recording of MOHW press conference.)
In a report on August 17, 2021, JIS covered this point made by Dr Bisasor-McKenzie, where she said “We are fast approaching that peak, which will put us in a very dangerous zone in terms of the care for COVID patients in our hospitals. It puts us in a very high level of pressure on the hospital system.”
Dr Andrew Manning, Medical Association of Jamaica President, in a news report on RJR, August 16-8-21 – MAJ Alarmed at Record High COVID Positivity Rate
Slide showing hospital capacity – OPM press briefing on August 19, 2021 – CMO Dr Bisasor-McKenzie said. ” And this is what is happening in our hospitals. Across the regions, what we are seeing is that the four regions are in an alert phase in terms of Covid capacity. For the southern region, we have gone over the capacity for Covid beds; we’re at 162% occupancy. For the western region, 142%. For the north east region, 125% and for the south east region at 97%. It means that most of our major hospitals, our main hospitals, are really full….As you can imagine, our health care workers are tired, they’re frustrated, they’re overworked, they’re stressed.” (Transcribed from PBCJ recording.)
This week Wednesday (August 25, 2021) All Angles on TVJ did a special report about the Savanna-La-Mar Hospital, which is struggling with an influx of Covid-19 patients. Dionne Jackson Miller interviewed members of staff – doctors, nurses, a porter, the CEO – about conditions at the hospital. It was a harrowing and moving programme.
And today a number of media houses have carried reports that there is a severe shortage of medical oxygen in the country, which is now affecting the supply to hospitals, some of which are said to be out of oxygen. There has not at this point been an official statement on this from the Ministry of Health & Wellness.
There is an urgent need for a press conference to be held focusing on the dire crisis in the hospitals. Despite the many warnings that this was where we were heading, now that we are here, the public of Jamaica deserves a full update. This is particularly urgent in light of the fact that the Dr Karen Webster-Kerr, National Epidemiologist, has said that this 3rd wave won’t peak for another two weeks. That thereafter it is likely to take several months to come down from that peak. That, although she is reluctant to give predictions about deaths, we are likely to see 140-150 deaths over the next week and an additional 10-20 on top of that number the following week. (She was speaking in an interview on Nationwide News Network on Thursday, August 26, 2021). This means that the pressure on the hospitals is likely to continue for weeks to come, increasing further before it decreases.
It is Saturday night. The curfew started at 6pm. For the next 3 days, Jamaicans are under 24-hour curfews, with the curfew ending at 5am Tuesday morning. Tomorrow – Sunday – would be a good time to hold a press conference. Let us know what time. Most of us will be at home…
At the meeting of the Joint Select Committee on the Covid-19 Pandemic and Related Matters that was held at Parliament this week Tuesday (July 20, 2021), National Epidemiologist Dr Karen Webster-Kerr gave an update on Jamaica’s Covid-19 situation, using data as of July 19.
A copy of the slide presentation presented by Dr Webster-Kerr is available here:
Dr Webster-Kerr noted the increase in the number of new cases and the positivity rate that has been seen in the past couple of weeks.
She pointed out that the Reproductive Rate of the virus is once again over 1, now being at 1.1. This means that Jamaica is again experiencing exponential spread of the virus, albeit at a slow rate of spread. This rate could easily increase sharply without preventative measures.
One of the questions that has been asked frequently in recent weeks is whether the more contagious Delta variant is now present in Jamaica, particularly since it has now become the main strain of Covid-19 being seen in the UK and the USA, both being countries which see a lot of air travel with Jamaica. In Parliament last week, Minister of Health Chris Tufton said that genetic sequencing test results from samples sent to the CDC had not shown the presence of the Delta variant. When asked by Opposition MP Morais Guy, however, he was unable to say when those samples had been collected.
A slide in Dr Webster-Kerr’s presentation dealt with the samples sent for genome testing since December 2020 and indicated that the most recent results received were still those from the CDC.
However, in response to MP Guy’s question about how recent the samples were that had been sent for testing, Dr Webster-Kerr said that the samples sent to CDC on June 8, 2021, were mostly taken in May, with three from April and two from June. The samples sent to PAHO’s lab in Brazil on June 24, 2021, were mainly from April and May with a few from June.
This highlighted the point that the samples from which we have received results are too old to give any clear indication of whether or not the Delta variant is now in Jamaica.
Minister Tufton also responded on the issue of the samples and the Delta variant:
I think we have to be as straightforward with the country as possible, not just on the evidence based on the tests done but on the likelihood based on projections and circumstances. I think you raised an important point, Member [Morais Guy], on questioning the recency or age of the samples that were collected. And I think it’s quite clear that based on the dates around those samples the likelihood of picking up the Delta variant at that time would be less than it would be presently. And I think the most recent samples, the ones that are to go off, which would contain samples of June and hopefully July, would be our key insight, if you will, into whether the Delta variant is here.
These things normally not advisible to give a personal view but certainly based on the interactions that we are having as an open society with other geographic spaces that have the Delta variant as a dominant feature of those populations, I certainly believe that it is just more a matter of time before we detect that that variant is here. And I think the true, the same could be said for other populations throughout the world. This is the nature of the virus, this is how it spreads and once you are exposed with borders that are open of necessity, for trade or otherwise, you are going to have that level of exposure.
So I do believe that a more accurate reflection of what is present in the population as it relates to variant strains will come from the most recent batch of samples collected and I think the country should be advised of that and should continue to observe the protocols in anticipation that we are likely to have the Delta variant.
Minister Chris Tufton, Covid Joint Slect Committee, July 20, 2021(Transcribed from PBCJ recording)
The Clinical Management Summary posted by the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW) yesterday, giving the figures for Tuesday (July 20, 2021) added to the concerns being expressed. The number of new cases recorded was 111, which was the first time since May 27, 2021, that the number of new cases recorded in a day had gone over 100; it was 108 on that day. Also, the positivity rate was 16.1%; a rate higher than that had not been recorded since May 5, 2021, when it was recorded at 18.7%
In Parliament on Tuesday, Prime Minister Andrew Holness made a statement regarding the Covid-19 situation and indicated that the Cabinet Covid-19 Sub-Committee would be meeting on the weekend and that if the trends continued, tighter restrictions might be announced. Such an announcement might be made next week Tuesday.
In an interview with Dionne Jackson Miller on RJR’s Beyond the Headlines yesterday evening, epidemiologist Professor Peter Figueroa expressed concern about the point that Jamaica is now at, with an increase in cases and a Reproductive rate of 1.1.
We are facing an imminent surge of the Delta, it’s probably the Delta variant and that can be very swift with an increase in cases. We need measures immediately….I’m concerned because we cannot afford to watch and wait. When you look at the data, when you start to get an increase in cases, it rises rapidly.
Professor Peter Figueroa, Beyond the Headlines, July 21, 2021 (Transcribed from recording)
There seems to be a general consensus that if the Delta variant is not actually here yet, it will be sooner or later. And there are many who see the recent increases as an indication that we are already on the verge of a third wave of Covid-19 in Jamaica.
PBCJ RECORDINGS OF PARLIAMENT
Meeting of Joint Select Committee on the Covid-19 Pandemic and Related Matters – Tuesday, July 20, 2021
Today I received a copy of the Jamaica Fire Brigade’s Final Fire Report regarding the fire which occurred at the Walker’s Place of Safety on January 16, 2018. The date of the Final Report is March 16, 2018. The fire resulted in the death of two girls who were resident at the facility, Oneike McGrae and Anna Kaye Moreland.
Having read the two-page report, I do not understand what justified not making it public at the time that it was completed and turned over to the Government.
It is clear that there remain many questions to be answered about this fire and the tragic loss of life and trauma that resulted, but as important a document as the fire report should not have taken many weeks to be released publicly. And one of the questions that needs to be asked concerns the adequacy of the report itself.
Right Steps & Poui Trees 