Spanish Town Hospital seeing sharp decline in births, maternity ward offering other services

The Spanish Town Hospital in St Catherine is reporting a steady decline in births as Jamaica’s decreasing fertility rate persists.

So reduced are births at the hospital that it is using space in the maternity ward to offer other services.

“The highest number of deliveries was in 2019, with 5,076 deliveries. The fewest deliveries were in 2025, with 3,273,” read a report from the hospital.

In 2024, there were 3,465 deliveries, while in 2023 there were 4,069 births at the hospital.

For 2022, there were 4,452 deliveries, a fall from 4,536 recorded in 2021, the report continued.

Chief Executive Officer of the Spanish Town Hospital, Jacqueline Ellis, surmised that, as in other parts of the world, the high cost of living and changing family structures may be potential local factors.

“It is known that Jamaica has one of the lowest fertility rates, and of course the Spanish Town Hospital would have been impacted. There are many issues that may have contributed to the low birth rate across the world,” Ellis said, however declining to speak specifically on the situation at her hospital without a more detailed assessment.

“The overcrowding on the Maternity Unit is reduced, so an area was repurposed to accommodate another service. I am not able to qualify the other resources,” she told The Gleaner.

Spanish Town Hospital joins the Victoria Jubilee Hospital, the island’s largest maternity ward in Kingston, which saw a decline from over 500 births per month to just over 300 monthly in 2025. This reflects findings from the Reproductive Health Survey, which show that the country’s total fertility rate plummeted from above 4.5 births per woman in the 1970s to 1.9 in 2021.

“The ideal number (of births per mother) should be just about two or a little over two. Now, what does that mean in its practical sense? It means that we have a population that is currently almost net neutral and on the verge of declining,” Health Minister Christopher Tufton has cautioned.

- Corey Robinson

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