Doctors join nurses in distress
Tufton anticipates ease next week as disgruntled medical staff at CRH protest overcrowding, poor working conditions
Published:Saturday | January 17, 2026 | 12:09 AMAdrian Frater/Gleaner Writer
Western Bureau:
For the second time in recent months, the medical staff at the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) in Montego Bay, St James, has gone public in registering their disgust with the overcrowding and poor working conditions at the Type A facility, which is the premier medical facility in western Jamaica.
In responding to the concerns in the afternoon, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton said he expected the overcrowding at the hospital to reduce by next week.
News broke shortly after 8 a.m. yesterday that doctors operating out of the hospital’s accident and emergency (A&E) department had joined their nurse colleagues, who have been on sickout since Monday, in a protest citing overcrowding in the A&E department as well as unsafe working conditions.
When The Gleaner visited the hospital mid-morning yesterday, several persons, who had turned up at the facility seeking medical attention, were seen seated under a tent, seemingly caught off guard by the protesting medical personnel.
“I came here to fulfil an appointment I had for today, only to see that doctors and nurses are protesting,” said Pamella Jones, who seemed quite perplexed by the situation.
“I am a person who come here very often so I am aware of terrible conditions, so I can sympathise with the nurses and doctors. I just wish they did not have to do this because we the patients are not to blame for the situation.”
It would also appear that the protest caught Dr Delroy Fray, the clinical coordinator at the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA), by surprise, as he stated that, while he was aware that the nurses were restive, he was not aware that the situation had evolved into the protest that took place.
“I was at a funeral, and somebody called me and told me the nurses are on strike, I didn’t know about it. I don’t know the details, you will have to give me some time to do some checks,” said Fray when he contacted by The Gleaner.
“I was told they were on sickout on Monday/Tuesday or Tuesday/Wednesday but I knew nothing more… give me some time to get the details.”
SPACE LIMITATIONS DUE TO MELISSA DAMAGE
In a subsequent interview with The Gleaner, Fray said that since Hurricane Melissa, 60 per cent of the ward space has been damaged, reducing capacity from 350 beds to a current 156 beds.
“What that left us with, we are having overcrowding; we had overcrowding before, but you can imagine now that we are down to 156 beds, there is more overcrowding,” said Fray. “Yesterday, there were 301 patients in hospital; 88 of them were out in A&E waiting for beds. So what that does is, it overburdens the poor nurses out there.
“What we have been doing is trying to repair the roof so we can put the patients back in the ward, so we can ease the pressure,” continued Fray. “The work is kind of slow, so it reached a point where they are stressed out, so they protested. And I want to say, I am in support of them because it is not easy, but at the same time, we are working hard to try and relieve the situation.”
The placard-bearing nurses, who marched around the hospital compound, made it clear that they will no longer tolerate the existing conditions.
“No change, no work,” they chanted repeatedly while displaying placards with slogans such as, ‘Help Us Improve Patient Care’, ‘We Need Better Working Conditions’, ‘Help Our Staff’, and ‘We Need Safety For Our Patients’.
In speaking to the chronic overcrowding inside the A&E department among the other issues of concern, Dr Renee Badroe, president of the Jamaica Medical Doctors’ Association, said the cramped conditions could lead to medical accidents.
“You have doctors at risk of needle-stick injuries because patients are packed like sardines,” she said, noting that, despite numerous complaints to the hospitals management and the Ministry of Health & Wellness, the situation has not been addressed.
“Safety is a significant concern. It’s a fire hazard; it’s a health hazard.”
Speaking with The Gleaner, Tufton said: “The information I have is that by next week we will see some amount of easing… the end of next week when some of the ward space will be back in operation.”
The minister said a combination of the flu season and the increased demand related to respiratory illnesses as well as Hurricane Melissa, which has damaged a lot of the ward space, has created a “double whammy” of a crisis space at the hospital. But he said contractors are on site, and work is taking place.
“I fully understand the fatigue the workers will be going through because of the high demand and they have people in the waiting in the area in the A&E who really should be on a ward,” he said.
“It’s a difficult situation, we fully understand, fully appreciate the concerns, and hoping that certainly over the next three to four weeks we will see a resumption of most of the ward space and therefore taking out some of that overcrowding.”
Two months ago, disgruntled nurses complained about hellish conditions at the hospital, saying they had to be treating patients on the floor in proximity to uncollected bodies. They also complained about a shortage of running water, which had forced them to use cups for basic sanitation.
Despite being touted as the top hospital in western Jamaica, CRH has had a long history of problematic issues, which predates a noxious fumes issues that surfaced in late 2017, resulting in a significant scaledown in services, amid the ongoing multibillion-dollar rehabilitation exercise.