Roger Hunter | Inverted health logic and priorities

It is heartbreaking and simply unimaginable, the suffering a Jamaican family endured when a loved one was accidentally burnt at home recently and subsequently died for want of life-saving care in a burn unit far away, in Miami. The ordeal was recounted by her sister in video that was circulated over WhatsApp.

Jamaica and the rest of the English-speaking Caribbean have perfectly inverted priorities – 50-plus Jamaicans die every day – most from heart attack and stroke. Yet there is not a single acute-care cardiovascular unit to reopen blocked vessels in the heart or brain, guided by Fast CT scans and DSA angiography suite (Egas Moniz, for which a Lisbon hospital is named, invented angiography in 1927), not a single one. Yet billions of dollars are wasted trying to isolate a 0.125-micrometre heat-sensitive, winter virus in a summer country, is inverted logic. There is not a single burn unit, yet air-conditioning running SUVs entourage were driving round herding, rather putting up people up in tiny, colonial-style town centres like Albert Town, telling folks not be at any gathering, to wear masks, sanitise and take a vaccine with unknown, medium-term side effects (as if the folks haven’t heard the same information from the billions spent on radio television, social media advertisements and elsewhere), inverted logic, upside-down health economics.

Mandeville Public Hospital is still painfully waiting to have a proper intensive care unit (ICU) but instead, has a woefully inadequate High-Dependency Unit posing as an ICU with an unbelievably high mortality rate. But no, we need to hear all this COVID-19 hysteria in a summer country. Now, plans to spend US$8.1 million on a cold vaccine in a summer country. But no fit-for-purpose healthcare to counteract basic heart attack and stroke emergency treatment.

Unbelievably, people are still being housed at taxpayers’ expense in isolation at various facilities, St Joseph’s Hospital included, not that the Golden Age Home right next to the hospital didn’t have a predictable outbreak – the Vineyard Town community said this simple fact would happen if they clustered potential COVID-19 cases at St Joseph’s – nonetheless the health authorities still did, closing down five operating theatres and negatively impacting the Cuban eye programme, which was benefiting thousands of Jamaicans. There were consultations by the Ministry of Health and Wellness with the residents of Vineyard Town to establish a novel coronavirus quarantine centre at the St Joseph’s Hospital in February 2020, which the residents strongly opposed. With one reported COVID-19 death at the Golden Age Home, none reported at the Mustard Seed Communities or Bellevue Hospital, despite these folks being among the oldest (with many underlying illnesses) in the country and totally scared out of their wits. Many were tested COVID-19-positive.

LINE UP IN THE SUN

Community spread was formally announced at the first press conference after the September election. But, the fact remains that extreme health crisis in Jamaica, such as stroke and heart attack, have not been addressed by successive governments. The Opposition said that the government was not doing enough and recommended more stringent measures, longer lock-down which would have crashed the economy and pushed the country into a deeper economic abyss. This meant denigrating proud, industrious Jamaicans lining up in the hot sun (not a bad thing to counteract a heat-sensitive, winter virus) for taxpayer-funded handouts.

My heart bleeds for that family and the other 50-plus people every day whose loved ones die because of a lack of basic technology-driven cures – angiogram suites and fast CT scans – which have been around for over 30 years now. Yet, health minister after health minister talk of the great jobs they have done, and administration after administration likewise oblige. How many thousands of people in their 30s, 40s, 50s and, I dare say, 60s have died from heart attack or stroke since the start of the year?

No acute coronary interventional angiography unit, no acute interventional cerebral angiography unit to reopen blocked arteries in the heart and brain, respectively, not one. God help us and those families who have lost and may lose a loved one today and every day going forward, until a government finally gets it right.

We need to take our medications, exercise, lose weight, get fit; control diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol. In addition, screen early and do not delay our cancer treatments, shun evil destructive, stress-filled thoughts – be positive. These are the best vaccines against COVID-19.

God always helps those who help themselves.

With regards to the coronavirus vaccine which, like the virus, is cold loving and heat unstable particle; with hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans who are already infected with coronavirus, and thousands who will not know because they are asymptomatic, they are already immune and do not need to take the vaccine. This mRNA vaccine has been rushed. We have zero data on- five or 10-year outcomes from these vaccines. We should be last in line because we have had one the best COVID-19 mortality rate in the world because of our year-round heat. The mRNA vaccines, which programmable genetic codes should be studied for at least 10 years before purchasing.

Last in the line should we be, the very last, no rush, no hysteria – remember thalidomide that was given to treat vomiting sickness in pregnancy, and as result of which thousands of babies born without limbs and fingers and toes. The treatment was worse than the disease.

Caveat emptor.

Roger Hunter, FRCS, is consultant neurosurgeon, principal consultant and medical strategist, former link surgeon for the Hyperacute Stroke Unit, Royal London Hospital. He is also founding member of Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management, London and presenter at the Royal Society of Medicine (London); Send feedback to rhunter96@yahoo.com.