‘Hypocrite or Coward?’ – Golding, Dawes recall Holness saying he heard cries of dead babies amid new spike

Opposition Spokesman on Health, Dr Alfred Dawes, is demanding that Prime Minister Andrew Holness take action against Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton following the deaths of at least 24 babies in June at Victoria Jubilee Hospital in Kingston.

The Health Ministry has acknowledged the "increase", which it says exceeds figures for previous months and the same period last year, but ruled out an outbreak, citing complications related to prematurity and low birth weight.

Speaking at the PNP’s combined divisional conference in St Andrew Southern on Saturday, Dawes invoked Holness’ own words during the 2015 “dead babies scandal” when, as opposition leader, he condemned the then-PNP administration and called for the resignation of Health Minister Dr Fenton Ferguson.

“It is his standards that he set in 2015 that we must live by today,” Dawes said. “So, in 2025, when you have 24 babies dead in one hospital in less than a month with no outbreak, what does he have to say about any resignation now?”

Dawes added that Holness must “define who he is going into this election - is he a hypocrite or a coward?".

In 2015, some 18 babies died across two hospitals over three months during an outbreak, a scandal that reverberated politically ahead of the 2016 general election.

"I hear the spirit of a little baby crying; crying, crying, crying, saying ',why didn't the people keep the [Jamaica] Labour Party government in? If the Labour Party government was in I would still be alive.' I hear the spirit of the 18 babies that have died...," Holness said at a party meeting. Ferguson, who controversially said the newborns were "not babies in the real sense” was later reassigned.

Holness has not commented publicly on the latest deaths.

Dawes argued that PNP President Mark Golding would fire him had he been minister presiding over the situation at Victoria Jubilee.

"This is not a man who come to scrape. This is not a man who, if babies dead under my watch, mi can dodge and weave. Him [ago] fire mi. Nuh true, boss?" he said, turning to Golding. "If I am not doing by best and PR-ing out, mi gone. And that is the level of accountability we cannot get from this administration."

Dawes also raised the 2022 incident in which 12 babies died in a bacterial outbreak at Victoria Jubilee.

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Mark Golding, who is the Member of Parliament for St Andrew Southern, voiced his concerns about the issue at Victoria Jubilee, saying a resident from his constituency lost her baby on Tuesday.

"Jamaica is watching you to see what you will do in light of what has happened here," Golding said of Holness.

He added: "We have all the videos of what you said and did in 2015 and we want to know, can you be consistent or will you be a hypocrite. We are watching. We don't have much optimism though because you have never held any member of your government accountable for anything in the nearly ten years you have been in government."

Golding claimed that the Holness administration is not one of accountability but one of public relations and hype.

The general election is expected by September.

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