On August 5, 2025, four days after the nation of Jamaica’s celebration of our emancipation from the shackles of slavery, I was given a rude awakening to see that our medical facilities, specifically the most important and foremost public health facility on our island of just under three million – Kingston Public Hospital – have yet to be emancipated from outdated and antiquated conditions.
I was at KPH to visit a close family friend, who had recently had a health episode and was hospitalised and receiving medical care. It was my first time visiting Kingston Public Hospital, and while I must commend the security and the diligence of the security guards, I cannot commend the overall facility.
When I arrived at the ward, I was greeted by, of all things, the smell of food. While I wondered where the smell had originated from, I quickly noticed that the ward was packed with elderly women, some in beds, others not. The facility seemed clustered, and the patients were not in the best of spirits. The staff on the ward, that is, the nurses, doctors, and other members of staff, should be appreciated for their most diligent efforts in the challenging situation.
Our beautiful island’s lack of medical resources became starkly apparent whilst at KPH: the overcrowded wards, lack of bed space, outdated equipment, and just generally aged infrastructure were on full display. This experience was made even more concerning when I realised that the smell of food was originating from a garbage bag directly beside the patient I was visiting. The bag was full, and even discarded boxes and scraps of food were on the ground. Soon after taking notice of the garbage bag, a janitor came and removed it and swept the ground. However, it was obvious that the bag had been there for a while and that it was definitely unsanitary and unpleasant in an already depressing environment.
It became clear to me that the calls for investment and renovation of the hospitals and clinics in Jamaica are not just wishful thinking or idle pandering. The solid future of our healthcare system depends on the people having updated, clean, and modern facilities. All patients at hospitals in Kingston, Mandeville, Montego Bay, May Pen, Spanish Town, and the many other public hospitals and facilities in our country should be guaranteed beds. They deserve respectable treatment and excellent facilities where their quality of life and health can be improved. Additionally, we should ensure that as a country our nurses and doctors are well-paid, cared for, and valued publicly. They should not be overworked and overburdened.
The people that serve our nation’s hospitals should be treated with the same amount of respect and reverence that we show athletes running in stadiums across the world or artists that produce music that has made us globally recognised.
When we do not value our healthcare workers, they will go where they are valued and respected. When we continually fail to realise that our healthcare system needs significant investment from whichever administration takes over leadership of this country come September 3, 2025, we are doing our future generation a serious disservice.
FALLING BIRTH RATE
There is much concern and discussion about our failing birthrate, and Jamaica is numbered amongst the countries with declining fertility numbers (1.3 according to the United Nations Population Fund 2025 State of World Population). We should be quick to see that we are the lowest-income nation amongst them; China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and some other nations on that list are amongst the richest in the world. While our nation is still a developing economy, we have made the economy so unaffordable and our healthcare system so outdated and ill-equipped that our population has made the deliberate and conscious decision to reduce family size.
It would be foolish not to note and applaud the efforts being made to upgrade our nation’s physical healthcare infrastructure. The renovations that are ongoing at the Cornwall Regional Hospital are commendable.
However, we as a nation should strive to reinvest in our human capital; neglecting human capital will keep us from achieving our full potential. Ensuring we have developed, clean, and well-staffed and well-funded hospitals is an important first step.
As we reflect on Independence and Emancipation this month, let us strive to emancipate ourselves from the burdens of a failing healthcare system.
Ifeoluwa Alonge is 16 years old and has been avidly writing since age 11.