WESTMORELAND, Jamaica – Scores of officials and supporters of the People’s National Party (PNP) on Wednesday morning staged a demonstration outside the Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital in Westmoreland demanding the resignation of Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton over the deaths of 14 babies over a four-month period at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital.

Among those involved in the protest were Vice Chairman of the PNP’s Region 6, Wayne Vacciana; Chairman for Region 6, Collin Hitchman; and Councillor of the North Savanna-la-Mar Division Devon Thomas.

PNP Councillor-Caretaker for the Savanna-la-Mar Division, Julian Chang told OBSERVER ONLINE that, as a mother, she sympathises with the mothers of the 14 babies who died after an outbreak of a resistant bacteria at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital in Kingston.

“I stand here in sympathy of the mothers of the allegedly 14 dead babies,” Chang said.

She said she understands the joy of being pregnant as she is a mother of three.

“Dr Tufton needs to resign and he needs to answer to the Jamaican people, time come!” she argued.

The health ministry has been accused of attempting to cover up the problem which was only made public several months after the outbreak started.

On Tuesday, Dr Tufton in an address to the House of Representatives said, while he accepts the view that the health authorities could have gone public with the information, if the problem was being solved and the risk was cauterised, creating unnecessary hysteria could potentially discourage people from going to VJH, which is the sole option for some.

Meanwhile, Vacciana told OBSERVER ONLINE that he was present when former Health Minister Dr Fenton Ferguson had to resign over a similar issue and he believes that Tufton should follow suit.

“We think it’s only prudent that we come out and support the mothers and ask the Minister to step away. In October 2015, a similar thing happened to the then minister Dr Fenton Ferguson,” Vacciana said.

In 2015, then Health Minister Dr Fenton Ferguson was eventually reassigned to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security after calls mounted for his resignation following revelation that 19 premature babies died from bacterial infections between June and September that year at University Hospital of the West Indies in St Andrew and Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay.