Orville Taylor | I don’t know what happened but it must not happen again!

My heart bleeds. I know the three ladies as students in the Faculty of Social Sciences on my plantation. Tiana James, a current next-generation graduate student, died after giving birth, and her baby also passed two days later. Then, 2019 graduate Jodian Fearon stirring a huge controversy, ironically, met her demise in a hospital while bringing a new life into the world. Two months earlier, visually impaired undergraduate student, Jasmine Deen, went missing, without a trace. Jasmine’s disappearance has hit me hard because my colleague, Floyd Morris, and the scores of persons with disabilities know how I feel about the community. Around 30 years ago as a young academic, long before the university had protocols for dealing with visually impaired students, I had Wilbert, Hixwell and many others, with whom I had to improvise as there was no protocol then, and I was not a trained teacher. By the time Cheryl, Pauline, and Michael ‘Haskell’ were in my classes, my relationship with my students with disabilities was deep and emotional; even those whom I did not teach directly.

At the Ministry of Construction, I oftentimes socialised with polio survivor, Jean, and Ouida and Mr Jones, the surveyor. While working at Ministry of Labour, I marvelled how Paul, our telephone operator, and Gloria, used to navigate. In the late ‘80s to early 1990s, I used to eat with her many times as I tried to understand what it is to be sightless. So, when Jasmine was reported missing, my heart sank because she was more vulnerable than the average.

So, I attempted to dig my police friends for answers. The rebuff was professional and respectful, with the simple statement, “DT, you know we are investigating and can’t tell you anymore.” Like the rest of Jamaica, I wait for the official update, because despite the wanton use of the tongue, there is a Jamaican proverb which says, “a no everything good fi eat, good fi talk”.

My relationship with my blind students helped me to see that I must not take for granted the fact that I have the privilege of being able to see things for myself, read first- hand material, look at photographs. Add to that, fine artists know that perspective allows you to see things for what they seem to be, and not what they are. Truth is, unless you know how to look, your eyes can fool you, and oftentimes they do. I have two eyes and one mouth; so, I like to observe and confirm, before I loosen my tongue.

JUSTICE SYSTEM

Despite my occasional excoriating of judges, lawyers and police officers, I have a lot of faith in our justice system, which, though fraught with imperfections, is better than most other countries in the world, and that includes several metropolitan nations, which from time to time try to pick the speck from out of our eyes. We have more police being held accountable for human rights violations, a smaller percentage of our population who have bribed judges, and doubtless, this country is a far better place for a young black man to receive a fair trial, than many other places with more resources.

Our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite a few dropped catches, has resulted in a much lower fatality rate than the UK, USA, France, Italy and Germany, despite our relatively low levels of testing. Indeed, given that we have more untested people walking around with few or no symptoms, the country’s mortality rate is actually much lower than we estimated. And that’s good.

‘THIRD WORLD’ COUNTRY

Compared to the UK and USA, with fatality rates of 16 per cent of confirmed cases and six per cent, respectively, our ratio is just below two per cent. This is in the context of a ‘Third World’ country, which only spends six per cent of its meagre gross domestic product on health. In comparison, these wealthier countries spend around 19 and 18 per cent, respectively. Add to that, a Jamaican doctor-patient ratio of 1.32 per 1,000, and a hospital bed density of 1.7 per 1,000, both less than half the score of our two powerful allies, and we should be thankful that our life expectancy is 75, compared to 81 and 80, way past the three score and 10.

However, almost 12 out of every 1,000 live born children die, more than double the UK’s 4.1, and the USA’s 5.3, although ours is the same as African Americans.

When it comes to maternal mortality, however, despite the highly trained and dedicated staff at Victoria Jubilee Hospital ‘Lyin Een’ and other facilities, we have an unacceptably high 80 per 100,000. We are in a different zone from those countries whose numbers are seven and 19. And even with America being in last place among all developed nations in terms of maternal mortality, with African Americans at 43 per 100,000, our figures are too far removed. Too many ordinary Jamaican women die annually from childbirth complication, and Government must figure out how to get this number down.

Our CARICOM neighbour, Barbados’ figures are 27 per 100,000, and guess what, they have 2.49 doctors and 5.8 beds per 1,000 residents. This bed count is even better than the Brits and Americans. Jamaica gets what it pays for, and we are blessed that it is not worse.

So, against that background we have seen some of the biggest knee-jerking and fist pumping in recent times, and everyone seems to know what happened with Jodian. There is one thing which is certain: she is gone and the matter is being investigated by the police as they always do with all sudden deaths, whether or not instructions are given by the political leadership.

As with Jasmine’s still incomplete investigations, we do a major injustice to all, including Jodian, by saying we know exactly what happened and “it must not happen again!” Let’s hold our breaths and give the family deep support, because the loss of any young life is a major tragedy.

Dr Orville Taylor is head of the Department of Sociology at The UWI, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com