When Dorothy Hosein visited Jamaica in September 2023, she expected to spend a week meeting stakeholders and touring the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) before formally accepting the job as CEO.

She’d been selected from a batch of six shortlisted candidates by the UHWI board based on her years of experience transforming other troubled health institutions in the U.K. and was looking forward to doing the same for Jamaica’s premier state-funded hospital.

But while she was received warmly by staff and members of the board, who seemed to want change, in an exclusive interview, she said it became clear to her a faction of key persons didn’t want her there, which ultimately led to her turning down the job.

Then-Acting CEO Fitzgerald Mitchell wouldn’t show her around despite being tasked with doing so; Chief doctor Carl Bruce refused to meet with her, and she learned he’d said he wouldn’t report to her as CEO; Health Minister Dr. Christopher Tufton was “not welcoming” and, in her presence, cozied up to Mitchell, who eventually got the top spot despite finishing last or second-to-last in the rounds of interviews, according to UHWI Board Chairman Wayne Chai Chong. Chai Chong says it was the decision by Tufton to reinstate Mitchell as acting CEO after the board voted to replace him with another senior director at UHWI during the ongoing CEO search, that led to his resignation as chairman and the dissolution of his board. Tufton has since dismissed the claim, saying ministers don’t appoint CEOs.

Mitchell is now on accrued leave amid a fraud squad investigation following a damning Auditor General’s report in January 2026 into procurement breaches and has declined to appear before the PAC probing the allegations against UHWI.

Bruce, meanwhile, remains in place as chief doctor, as does Tufton as health minister. None of the three have commented on their interactions with Hosein despite being given an opportunity to do so by 18° North.

In May 2026, Tufton voiced support for the recommendations of a review committee he set up in the wake of the Auditor Generals’ report, including appointing a fulltime international expert in hospital administration to the UHWI board for at least a year.

The question is, based on Hosein’s experience three years earlier where the UHWI board tried to recruit an experienced international hospital turnaround specialist to lead the institution but the effort collapsed in part because of him, does Tufton really support change or is it only him about appearing to do so?

In an exclusive interview, Hosein lays out her experience and explains why it’ll be difficult for any CEO to fix UHWI unless the power structure changes first.

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Audio Interview with Dorothy Hosein, the CEO candidate the board chose in 2023 to run UHWI.

Timestamps

0:00 Rigorous hiring process: The interviewee went through a competitive, multi-month recruitment process for a Chief Executive role and was ultimately selected.

0:22 Pre-start visit week: As is standard practice, she visited the hospital for a week before starting to meet directors, staff, tour facilities, and meet the Minister of Health, Dr. Christopher Tufton.

1:04 Hostile reception from acting CEO: On day one, the acting CEO Fitzgerald Mitchell was immediately and inexplicably hostile, refused to show her around, and so she left after around 10 minutes and arranged instead with the Director of HR to take her around.

2:50 Circulated negative communication: During her visit, she got a call from the then board chairman Wayne Chai Chong alerting her to a note that was being circulated allegedly from Bruce and possibly Mitchell claiming she was “not fit for the job.”

3:20 Staff were welcoming and eager for change: Despite leadership hostility, frontline staff — nurses, doctors, admin — were enthusiastic and open to change, valuing her independence and experience.

3:55 Minister of Health Tufton not supportive: Despite apparently helping to try and get approval from the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service to sign off on the board’s plan for the private sector to supplement the pay package of the CEO Designate, Minister Tufton didn’t appear warm or welcoming to her and seemed to favor Mitchell.

5:58 Bruce refused to meet her: The Senior Director, Clinical Services flatly refused to meet her at any point and no reason given.

6:14 Culture of fear: Staff described certain individuals holding disproportionate power and control, with people afraid to speak out. Some people threatened by change.

8:08 A major governance concern: She learned Bruce had indicated he would not report to her as CEO.

8:45 Transforming the hospital: On Bruce having said there was no way that a CEO could come and transform the hospital in three years, which was the length of her contract. Within eight months at other places, she was able to show improvement.

9:58 She raised governance concerns with the board: At the end of the week, she told the chairman she still wanted the job but listed clear governance issues that had to be resolved first.

11:12 Threatening undercurrent: She received a call saying to be careful.

12:18 Who was in control of the hospital: She learned Bruce had to approve everything.

14:10 Wouldn’t have been able to come without the minister’s support: She raised lack of support from Tufton with the board.

14:22 Ultimately turned down the job: The board communicated they were unable to resolve the governance issues and action change, leading her to formally withdraw.

15:45 Open to re-engaging: She expressed care for Jamaica’s healthcare system and didn’t rule out future involvement but emphasized the focus should be on fixing the hospital rather than her return. The hospital needs to change.

17:45 Being a foreigner: People are craving change from someone with no connection to anything.

18:13 Connection to the West Indies: Husband is Trinidadian. Met in Ireland.

19:12 A&E conditions: She personally witnessed the poor conditions, reinforcing her belief the hospital urgently needs change. I really know I can do this. I’ve done it before.

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Editor’s Notes:

Interview has been edited for brevity.
Minister Tufton was also asked via email if he had made any attempt since May to propose amendments to the 1948 UHWI Act in order to action one of the recommendations of the review committee which was to eliminate the anomaly in the Act where the Senior Director of Clinical Services (chief doctor) sits on the board while the CEO doesn’t, which creates a power conflict, and he didn’t respond. He also didn’t say whether another recommendation had been actioned which was to impose term limits on the Chair of the Hospital Medical Committee, a post held by the SDCS.

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How UHWI’s Effort to Reform Itself Was Defeated by an Internal Power Struggle Involving Its Chief Doctor, Carl Bruce.

Push to Replace UHWI Chief Doctor Carl Bruce Reaches Prime Minister Amid Complaints Against Him and Perceived Hospital Inaction

Records Point to Family Link Between UHWI Medical Chief of Staff and MEDITECH, Raising Conflict-of-Interest Questions

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The University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) is facing mounting pressure over poor patient care, management and governance failures, and procurement irregularities.

The state-run institution was the site of a recent protest by nurses who claim that because of inadequate bed space and resources at the Accident and Emergency Department, patients were being resuscitated on the floor.

Now, minutes of UHWI board meetings show that, as these problems were festering, an effort to recruit a transformational CEO in 2023 collapsed amid internal resistance from the hospital’s chief doctor Carl Bruce and then-Acting CEO Fitzgerald Mitchell.

The minutes submitted to the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and obtained by 18° North raise questions about whether entrenched interests blocked reforms that could have addressed the deficiencies of the teaching hospital.

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Before Hurricane Melissa ravaged western Jamaica last year, the only other post-Independence event to have wiped out two-fifths of Jamaica’s GDP was the meltdown of the financial sector in the 1990s.

The PJ Patterson-led government of the day set up the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (FINSAC) to bail out some financial institutions and take over others, saddling it with bad loans and some of the underlying real estate assets.

The intervention by FINSAC caused the government to bleed billions of Jamaican dollars, making it desperate for cash.

Now a confidential report that has not been previously reported publicly is showing how that desperation coupled with FINSAC having “engaged the services of an unqualified valuator, Michael McNaughton,” led to the disposal of valuable assets that were “severely under-priced,” lowering returns to the state-owned company.

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By the government accepting less, not only were taxpayers disadvantaged, according to FINSAC victim Yola Gray-Baker, but debtors like herself may have been able to get some support from the state had the assets been sold for what they were truly worth.

Instead, she argues, after being forced to sell or give up homes and businesses to pay off loans at astronomical interest rates —north of 100% in her case —stemming from the government’s high-interest rate policy of the day to combat inflation, “the debtors got nothing.”

FINSAC “Ignored Previous Valuation Reports”

The 20-page confidential report, obtained under the Access to Information Act by 18° North from the Ministry of Finance, was authored by management consultant, Dennis L. Boothe, who, himself, served as FINSAC’s Managing Director and as a director of one of its subsidiaries, Refin Trust.

At the time of the report on Dec. 11, 2008, however, Boothe was as an advisor to the then minister of finance, having ended his tenure running FINSAC between January 1997 and June 1998, according to his LinkedIn profile. Patrick Hylton had taken over.

For two major properties, the report stated that FINSAC “appears to have ignored” previous valuation reports prepared by reputable appraisers, opting instead to rely on “a single appraisal” from McNaughton, resulting in the properties being “severely underpriced.”

One of the properties was the then Mutual Life Centre, which is today the set of twin towers at the corner of Old Hope Road and Oxford Road that houses government offices like the Ministry of National Security.

According to the report, FINSAC agreed to sell the property to Michael Lee Chin’s AIC for J$650 million (US$13.4 million) in 2002 based on McNaughton’s appraisal, even though it had been previously valued in 1997 by Allison Pitter & Company at J$1.15 billion (US$32.4 million) with a replacement cost of J$3.4 billion (US$94.9 million). That same year in 1997, it was also valued by Real Estate (Consolidated) Ltd. at J$1.4 billion (US$39.5 million) with a replacement cost of J$2.8 billion (US$79 million).

AIC went on to purchase the government’s majority shareholding in National Commercial Bank (NCB) from FINSAC at a price that Boothe also determined appeared “low.” Neither Boothe nor Lee Chin responded to 18° North’s requests for comment.

Mutual Life Towers — Fire Sale or Not?

“FINSAC was aware that the offer made by AIC for the Mutual Life Centre was very low but seemed to be in a desperate hurry to sell the complex,” the report observed. In a May 20, 2002 letter to AIC, FINSAC Managing Director Patrick Hylton pointed out that the “discount rate used to value the premises was too high, and therefore depressed the value of the property.” The files indicated that the directors were also of the view that the sale price was low.

Despite the low price and the fact that the government needed cash, FINSAC turned around and sweetened the deal even more with generous terms of payment to the purchasers -- a deposit of 15% of the purchase price or J$97.5 million (US$2 million) and the remaining $552.5 million (US$11.4 million) financed by a vendor’s mortgage. This vendor’s mortgage was payable over one year after completion at a rate of 10% per annum payable in two installments.

It’s not known how or why, in the end, FINSAC accepted such a low price on such favorable terms for the Mutual Life Centre, and Hylton didn’t answer his phone or a WhatsApp message seeking comment.

However, a 2003 article in The Financial Gleaner about the sale to AIC noted that FINSAC had been trying to sell the property for almost five years.

Hylton went on to become deputy head of NCB in 2003, according to the government’s Jamaica Information Service and later assumed the top job at that bank. But in 2011, he publicly denied that the sale of NCB to AIC from FINSAC in 2002 was linked to him getting the NCB post.

Was McNaughton Held to Account?

According to the report, another commercial real estate asset, Life of Jamaica Towers on Dominica Drive, was similarly sold for a depressed price based on a single appraisal from McNaughton.

The report stated that the reports presented by McNaughton to FINSAC were not valuations and were instead titled “Property Inspection Form for Commercial Real Estate.” But according to Boothe’s report, it appeared to be common knowledge in the real estate profession that that, though unlicensed, McNaughton had been engaged to perform appraisals for FINSAC’s larger properties.

At no time was McNaughton licensed as a dealer -- he was only a registered salesman -- according to the report. Boothe outlined that on October 21, 2008, he’d gotten confirmation from the Real Estate Board that McNaughton was not registered or licensed to give any valuation or appraisal of real estate. Therefore, he concluded, McNaughton “possessed neither the requisite expertise nor qualifications to undertake such large assignments.”

Boothe recommended that an investigation be undertaken into the circumstances surrounding McNaughton’s engagement and that he be reported to the Real Estate Board so that legal action could be instituted against him for violating its regulations.

However, when contacted about whether action was ever taken against McNaughton, the Real Estate Board confirmed he wasn’t licensed to give appraisals but didn’t go further.

For his part, McNaughton was adamant he didn’t carry out a valuation of the properties but rather provided an “opinion” on the value of the properties for which he was paid. When pressed who contracted him to provide this opinion, as he claimed, McNaughton declined to answer merely stating, “it was so long ago almost 30 years now.”

We asked whether it was FINSAC that engaged his services or paid him, but McNaughton responded “no” adding, “you have your research to be done.” However, his response leaves more questions than answers like who exactly contracted him and why him of all persons to deliver an opinion on the value of the property if he was unqualified to carry out a valuation? More importantly, why did FINSAC sell the properties merely based on an opinion and not a proper valuation, as would normally be done?

A profile of McNaughton on the website of the Jamaica Stock Exchange, where he’s a board member, shows that he had worked as an independent consultant to NCB, Finsac Limited, Beal Bank, and Ocwen Financial Corporation through Dennis Joslin & Co. (McNaughton says NCB was a separate engagement.)

Dennis Joslin Jamaica, Inc. was initially engaged to administer FINSAC’s loan portfolio, according to Boothe in a separate report. The portfolio of non-performing loans was subsequently sold to Jamaica Redevelopment Foundation Inc., reportedly a subsidiary of Beal Bank based in Texas.

Not Exercising Fiduciary Responsibility

In his report, Boothe detailed FINSAC’s failure to exercise prudence in establishing the market value of several major properties by obtaining a minimum of two recent valuations, including one from the Commissioner of Lands.

He also accused the state entity of placing its commercial property holdings on the market at the same time and listing them with more than 50 real estate brokers that created “a glut in the market,” leading to the disposal of valuable assets at “bargain basement prices.”

He also outlined how, for the disposal of some assets, FINSAC appeared to have disregarded the long-established practice adopted by the government of appointing divestment committees under the guidance of the state-owned Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ) despite evidence that, where these committees were used in offloading other assets, “the process appeared to have been carefully planned, transparent and resulted in a fair purchase price.”

Bitter Medicine for FINSAC Victims

To Gray-Baker, the revelation about the engagement of McNaughton is still relevant today as she is hoping to convince the government this year that victims should receive compensation.

According to Boothe’s report, having bailed out the banks, FINSAC had initially considered revitalizing some businesses that had been affected by the government’s high-interest rate policy in the 1990s, which would have involved restructuring loans—an initiative they had begun to pursue. However,” the exercise was made difficult” when the non-performing loans were eventually sold to a foreign collections agency, files were transferred offsite and staff left, which hindered the retrieval of information.

Though the Bruce Golding-led government had established a Commission of Enquiry into FINSAC back in 2008, no final report has been forthcoming and may never come. Only submissions to the Enquiry were made public on the Ministry of Finance’s website in 2024.

According to then Finance Minister Dr. Nigel Clarke, the Cabinet lost confidence in the ability of the commissioners to deliver a final report even after making additional injections of cash.

Without the final report, it’s been difficult for the victims to know where culpability rests, and how, even decades later, they can go about getting financial relief.

With Boothe concluding that in the process of disposal of assets, “there were clear instances of incompetence and poor judgment on the part of the board and management of FINSAC,” this newly-unearthed document may go some of the way in helping fill the information gap for some FINSAC victims.

####

With reporting by Zahra Burton.

Editor’s Notes:

Exchange rates used for the real estate values for 2002 and 1997 are J$48.56 and J$35.45, respectively. These are the average sell rates on the Bank of Jamaica’s website for each of those years.

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The effort by senior clinicians at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) to get Dr. Carl Bruce replaced as the chief doctor has escalated to the level of the prime minister, 18° North has learned.

This follows their failed attempts over the last several months to convince the hospital’s board and management to act.

According to one of the senior doctors, who didn’t want to be named, a formal letter was sent to Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness almost three weeks ago signed by 17 clinical heads and subheads.

Dr. Myrton Smith, the UHWI representative of the Association of Government Medical Consultants, a union body, wouldn’t comment as to whether the letter was sent, saying only that as far as the position of Senior Director Clinical Services (SDCS), “We can’t say we’ve had significant feedback regarding the position we had taken so we await that feedback from the management…The consultants remain resolute that we need to see some tangible changes to the leadership structure.”

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The Details of the Letter

In a May 18 unsigned version of the letter to Holness seen by 18° North, the consultants referenced the Auditor General’s report made public in January that highlighted a slew of procurement breaches at the hospital. CEO Fitzgerald Mitchell has gone on accrued leave amid a fraud squad investigation. (Mitchell said “no response” when asked to comment on the report and has refused to appear before the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) probing operations at UHWI.)

In the letter, the clinicians outlined that they’d been flagging some of the very same issues for years, and “are deeply concerned and enraged by the hospital management’s slow pace of implementation of changes” to ensure the problems don’t recur.

One of their main concerns is the role of the SDCS, which they claim is contributing to the dysfunction as it is now functioning.

The post is understood to be occupied by Bruce. However, in the letter, the senior doctors refer to “the Acting SDCS” —without calling his name — and requested that the position be advertised and filled as soon as possible. They say most of them “have lost confidence in the current Chair of the Medical Committee”—also understood to be Bruce — since that post is usually held by the SDCS.

Most news reports over the past decade have referred to Bruce as the hospital’s Medical Chief of Staff (MCS), a title appearing as far back as in UHWI’s 2010–2011 annual report, before he was in the role. However, the clinicians argue the title is not officially used in Jamaica’s healthcare system, and in February, then Acting CEO Eric Hosin directed staff to stop using it, though he didn’t offer a replacement title. (The oldest annual report on file at the Parliament’s library, from 1961, uses the title Chief Medical Officer.)

According to the letter to the prime minister, the SDCS is a full-time hospital post. When Bruce took up a full-time job at the University of the West Indies (UWI) around 2021, the clinicians wrote, he should have vacated the SDCS post “in keeping with the established practice for all Medical Consultants employed by the UHWI.” Instead, they claim he has remained in the role “illegitimately,” and accused him of disrespecting staff, undermining clinical heads and overruling their procurement recommendations even in areas outside of his expertise.

“The current Board of Management is aware of this issue, as have other Hospital Boards before this one,” the letter lays out. “The Human Resources Subcommittee of the Board has not only failed to direct the changes needed to resolve this issue but have instead attempted to find ways to defend the status quo.”

Minutes of the Human Resources Subcommittee of the UHWI board from 2023 shared with the Parliament this week confirm that Senior Director of HR Duane Nelson believed Bruce was performing “commendable” duties as SDCS, but there were, in fact, some discussions about whether the chief doctor could legitimately hold two full-time jobs simultaneously.

As to how that matter was resolved, Nelson told 18° North on June 19 he would respond through the new Acting CEO, Lt. Col. Dr. Sydney Powell, who took over after Hosin demitted office on June 10. However, that answer hasn’t yet come.

Bruce’s Tenure Under A Cloud

Earlier this year, a Jan. 16, 2026 no-confidence letter to then Acting CEO Hosin signed by 13 clinical heads accused Bruce of questionable management practices, including cancelling contracts without consultation, withholding payments to junior doctors, and being partly responsible for operational problems that contribute to overcrowding in the Accident and Emergency department.

Bruce was contacted for comment on the allegations in that letter and the one to the prime minister, but he didn’t respond.

The Jan. 16 letter, which also didn’t name him and only referred to the SDCS without the “Acting” designation, also referenced allegations of verbal and physical abuse dating back to 2018, and failures by the hospital to properly investigate the matters. However, the minutes of the HR subcommittee show that, in at least one such case from 2023 involving a nurse in the ICU, UHWI did investigate and a determination was made that “there was no charge to be answered.”

Court records show that a nurse later filed a lawsuit against Bruce and the hospital alleging assault and battery arising from an incident in the ICU during the same general period, though it’s not confirmed that this is the same matter referenced in the HR subcommittee minutes.

Su2024cv01959 Further Amended Claim Form Latoya Campbell V Dr Carl Bruce & University Hospital Board Management

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The Jan. 16 letter did refer to two court cases against Bruce — one widely known to be criminal — which should disqualify him from remaining as the public image of the hospital. According to the Staff Orders for the Public Service, “Where an officer has been, or is about to be charged with a criminal offence, he/she may be interdicted from duty on half, quarter or no salary, pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings.”

The Response of Management, the Board and the Health Minister

On Feb. 27, 2026, 18° North reported that then Acting CEO Hosin, Board Chairman Patrick Hylton, and UWI, Mona Principal Densil Williams, had requested from clinicians two additional weeks to investigate complaints raised by clinical staff about Bruce in the Jan. 16 letter.

Given that several months have passed and the senior doctors say not much progress has been made, 18° North on June 17 asked Hosin, who remains on the UHWI board, as well as UHWI board chairman Patrick Hylton, how come they hadn’t acted to replace Bruce given all the complaints, but neither of the two responded.

Health Minister Dr. Christopher Tufton, meanwhile, distanced himself from the matter when asked at a June 10 post-Cabinet press briefing whether he still supports Bruce despite the complaints. He responded, “Ministers don’t appoint Chief Medical Officers…I think that’s his title—Dr. Bruce—either Chief Medical or Medical Chief of Staff, and I believe he held that position before I became minister. So again, that should clarify that.”

The unnamed senior doctor dismissed that response and suggested that Bruce’s long-standing friendship with Tufton may be influencing the lack of action.

The senior doctor hopes the letter to the prime minister will lead to change, warning that if there is no response later this month, he and his fellow doctors may consider industrial action.

“We cannot guarantee continued normalcy,” the letter had subtly threatened if there’s not decisive action.

Prime Minister Holness hasn’t responded to an email asking if he will accede to the senior doctors’ requests.

####

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Jamaica’s Integrity Commission has ruled that Dr. Andrew Wheatley, Minister Without Portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for science, technology, and special projects is to be charged for illicit enrichment.

The Commission’s Director of Corruption Prosecution also ruled that he be charged with knowingly making a false statement, and failing, without reasonable cause, to provide information as required, according to documents tabled in the parliament on Wednesday.

The investigation concerned Wheatley’s statutory declarations submitted to the Commission for the years 2010 to 2022, mostly while he was Member of Parliament for St. Catherine South Central under the governing Jamaica Labour Party. The relevant period for the illicit enrichment calculations, however, was between 2013 and 2022.

The Commission found that Wheatley was in possession of assets disproportionate to his lawful earnings to the tune of $164 million.

This was based on a calculation putting Wheatley’s total income at approximately $187 million, while his application—which includes closing balances in bank and investment accounts, loan repayments, investments, property and motor vehicle acquisitions and expenses — amounted to around $351 million ($187 million - $351 million = -$164 million).

According to the investigation report, Wheatley failed to provide an explanation which satisfies section 14(5) of the Corruption Prevention Act as to how he came by said assets. The investigation also revealed that Wheatley held assets which he failed to include in his statutory declarations in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2021.

The Commission said the “foregoing omissions prima facie constitute offences under section 43(2)(a) of the ICA (Integrity Commission Act) and section 15(1)(b) of the Parliament (Integrity of Members) Act.”

Transactions Questioned by the Commission

There were extensive assets, liabilities, gifts and income that Wheatley declared in his statutory declarations but failed to provide additional information on when this was requested by the Director of Information and Complaints. The Commission said, it would appear he also failed to disclose an investment in a company, the particulars relating to the subdivision into lots and development and divestment of a plot of land that he jointly owned, and some commercial loans.

Among the gifts the Commission had questions about were six apartments.

The six apartments appear to have been part of a development on land acquired at East Kirkland Heights (Stirling Castle) by Wheatley and one Patrick Phipps in October 2011 with no registered mortgage.

In 2013, the property was sub-divided and developed into 20 strata lots, 14 of which were sold between 2014 and 2018, which wasn’t reflected in Wheatley’s statutory declarations for the period 2013 to 2018. In 2018, however, the report states, Wheatley began declaring rental income from six apartments in Sterling Castle, St. Andrew, which Wheatley had reported were acquired by way of “gift,” which he was asked to explain.

Wheatley responded to the Commission that sometime in 2010, Phipps, a building contractor who he’s known over the years, invited him to form a joint venture partnership to carry out housing developments. His role and function were to provide management of the JV, negotiate loans, identify development properties for acquisition, ensure timely approvals and sales, and, where possible contribute cash, which he did once by taking out a loan that was subsequently repaid by the JV.

Phipps’ role, meanwhile, was to negotiate builders’ credits, bank financing and provide cash equity where required by the financial institution.

Wheatley explained that his compensation was to be in the form of units in the completed development. This project happened to be one of the first projects undertaken. He explained that the six units represented his share of the profits and added that, since the titles were registered in both our names and only required removal of Phipps’ name, the transaction was annotated on the titles by the lawyers as “transfer by way of gift.”

Wheatley also indicated that the acquisition of the land was funded solely by Phipps, which Phipps confirmed. This caused the Commission to summarize that, “In essence, Dr. Wheatley, having not contributed any capital to the joint venture received six (6) units as compensation therefrom.”

Among Wheatley’s other properties acquired were two properties in Florida in the United States; a property in Drax Hall in St. Ann; lands in St. Elizabeth; and a piece of land in Stilwell. He also had investments in several companies including Techem Supplies; Price Tech Limited; Prosperity Realtor Company Limited; and Western Medical Centre.

Wheatley claimed to have purchased the Drax Hall property partly with earnings from Western Medical of which he was the sole proprietor. The business was subsequently closed in 2013, but not before receiving income of $45 million from the company between 2010 and 2013, $13 million of which, he said, was received in 2013 from the proceeds of the sale of the business.

Wheatley provided financial statements showing the company had earned revenue ranging from around $15 million to $26.7 between 2010 and 2013 with salary and wages ranging from $12.9 million to $17 million. An examination of its tax filings by the Commission, however, showed that in some years during the relevant period, the company filed nil tax returns, which is usually interpreted to mean that the business entity had not declared any income or expenses on the form even though Western Medical was reported by Wheatley to have had earnings.

For this, the DI referred the investigation report to the Tax Administration of Jamaica for an assessment to be made, and where necessary, for penalties to be imposed.

Wheatley Slaps Back

In a statement released to the media, through his attorney, Wheatley rejected as “patently false, inaccurate and grossly misleading” the Commission's finding regarding the $164 million disproportionality concerning his assets compared to his lawful earnings.

Wheatley called it “odd, unreasonable and unfair that in arriving at his conclusion, the Director of Investigations clearly decided not to take into account approximately 168-million in rental income which I lawfully accumulated and declared over the nine years.”

Wheatley continued that the Director of Investigation also failed to take into consideration “the lawful and verifiable payment sources utilized in respect of the repayment of approximately $50 million in loans obtained from financial institutions in the pursuit of my real estate business.”

As far as the six apartments which were declared to the Commission as gifts, Wheatley stated, “I entered into a joint venture which involved the purchase of land for development purposes. The initial arrangement with my business partner was to split ownership of the development along the lines of a 50/50 ratio. I was unable to meet my obligations and consequently the arrangement was adjusted to a 70 to 30 allocation. I managed the construction and negotiated credit. My 30 percent share of the development would amount to the proceeds of sale of six units. Instead of taking value in cash, I chose to have properties transferred to me. The Attorneys-at-Law handling the Joint Venture prepared the transfer indicating it was by way of a gift. The Director of Investigations is apparently not aware that, in the real estate industry, such a transaction is not an unusual commercial arrangement which developers may lawfully enter into.”

On the recommendation that he be charged for illicit enrichment along with the other charges, he said it will be “vigorously contested.”

Wheatley, who says he’s been cooperating with the investigation, attested, “I have lawfully acquired every dollar and every asset that I own. I intend to defend my reputation via the Court and am confident of a positive outcome.”

“There is no credible evidence to support the allegation that I acquired my earning by unlawful means and,” Wheatley said. “Should additional proof of this was required by the Director of Investigation, all he had to do is ask.”

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A new interim chief executive has been named at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) as Eric Hosin vacated the job, as expected, on June 10.

The new acting head is the Senior Medical Officer at the Port Maria Hospital Lt. Colonel Dr. Sydney Powell, who is expected to serve for six months.

“I’m on secondment. I will be going back to my job in a couple of months,” said Powell who was reached by phone June 11 by 18° North and asked about how he felt about being chosen for the job given the weight of the responsibility running UHWI.

“Every shoes I wear is big,” Powell said, and he went on to highlight his post at the Port Maria Hospital as well as his 20 years at the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) where he oversaw the health of soldiers and provided strategic medical advice to the JDF. When asked about his priorities as the new interim CEO, he said he would have to call back as he was in the barber’s chair, but he didn’t.

One former colleague at the JDF, who wasn’t authorized to speak, described Powell as a “very good choice” to run UHWI. “He is a no-nonsense person and problem solver, so hopefully [he] will be able to straighten out alot of things there.”

However, inside UHWI, one senior doctor, who didn’t want to be named, expressed disappointment with the choice saying doctors generally don’t make good administrators, while Hosin, who used to run insurance company Guardian Group, was doing “an excellent job.”

“We would have wanted someone from Corporate Jamaica,” the senior doctor said. “But we’re gonna give him the space to prove himself.”

The post of CEO has taken on new importance as an Auditor General’s report made public in January uncovered a slew of procurement issues at the hospital, including no submitted annual reports and audited financial statements for 2019-20 to 2024-25 detailing how approximately $65 billion in subventions were used; major gaps in procurement planning; no procurement documentation for 51 contracts valuing $521 million; and the hospital inappropriately using its tax-exempt status to import goods for private companies duty-free, resulting in $23 million in lost revenue to the government.

UHWI CEO Fitzgerald Mitchell has since gone on accrued leave, though it wasn’t clear the length of his vacation. Mitchell said “no response” when asked to comment on the report by 18° North. Though still on a government salary, he has refused to appear before the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which has been probing the operations of UHWI, on the advice of his lawyer.

Four Named to the Board

Four persons have also been named to the UHWI board, which is led by former NCB Financial Group CEO Patrick Hylton.

According to documents tabled in the parliament on June 3, Cabinet approved the appointments of pediatrician Lisa Franklin-Banton and neonatologist Jillian Lewis; former Jamaica Bankers Association President and NCB banking executive Septimus Blake; and Michelle Miller, who will be an ex-officio member representing the Financial Secretary.

The tabling of the appointments comes four months after the decision was taken by Cabinet on Feb. 9. They will serve from that date until Oct. 12, 2028, when the tenure of the current board expires.

Two months ago, 18° North had made an Access to Information request of Hosin for the names of the current board members that has gone unanswered despite the 30-day timeframe in law for delivery of responses. According to a report made public in May from a review committee set up earlier in the year to examine the systemic challenges of UHWI and make recommendations for improvements, the 18-member board comprises ten persons, including two ex-officio persons, appointed by the Minister of Health who is Dr. Christopher Tufton. The University of the West Indies (UWI) appoints another eight members, including four ex officio ones.

Board member Blake wouldn’t divulge any of the names of the board members but confirmed, after being nudged by 18° North on June 4, that the following persons were indeed on the board: Principal of the UWI, Mona, Densil Williams; Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences at UWI, Mona, Prof. Joseph Plummer; Hosin, who will remain a director; Dr. Ronald Robinson, Former Senator and State Minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the Bruce Golding-led government; and the chief doctor at UHWI Dr. Carl Bruce, who has been on the board for more than a decade and was appointed under a previous government. The UHWI website lists him as an ex-officio member seemingly because of his role.

18° North is still trying to confirm who the other members are and will report the information once the full board is known.

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Disclaimer: Global Reporters for the Caribbean, the parent company of 18° North, had provided production services to UHWI in around 2018.

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Conflicting explanations are casting new light on how the charity that operates the Tony Thwaites Wing at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) came to be used to facilitate duty-free imports for about J$5 billion (US$33 million) worth of goods, including some it didn’t own.

The review by the Auditor General’s Department (AudGen) of nearly 3,000 UHWI import entries from 2019 to 2025 made public in January showed how the charity, University Hospital of the West Indies Private Wing, was listed as the importer in all cases, along with its Taxpayer Registration Number (TRN), enabling an estimated J$1.49 billion (US$9.9 million) in customs duties to be waived even for some items belonging to private companies.

While the chairman of the charity, Mark Thwaites, denies approving the use of the charity in this way, his own explanation, the AudGen’s findings, financial records and 18° North’s interview with the customs broker raise questions about whether the charity itself enabled the environment for breaches and should be sanctioned.

Far less attention has been paid to the role of the Private Wing until now.

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The AudGen analyzed 20 import entries in detail and found problems with eight.

Among those eight, were transactions involving two companies, which the public now knows to be Supreme Laundry Services and JACDEN Group of Companies, the latter being owned by a sitting People’s National Party (PNP) Member of Parliament, Dennis Gordon.

The AudGen found that the Private Wing in 2023 and 2024 was listed as the importer of laundry equipment, office furniture and dialysis machines for both companies altogether valued at about J$68.6 million (US$454,998), generating J$16.7 million (US$110,765) in duty waivers.

Auditors found no evidence that the imports were ever received or used at UHWI, yet still the hospital paid out around J$1.9 million (US$12,585) in other customs taxes and fees.

How the Private Wing’s Tax-Exempt Status Came to Be Used

In a recent interview with 18° North, Thwaites offered a shifting explanation for how the charity’s tax-exempt status came to be used.

“The acts that were facilitated were not approved by us,” he said at first.

Pressed further, he said the Private Wing’s manager may have assisted UHWI “once” in clearing a shipment pre-2019, before the practice continued “without our explicit approval.”

He also said the ability for this to have happened was because the charity and UHWI shared the same customs broker at the time.

“We have changed the broker,” he said. “We cannot have the same brokerage as UHWI.”

The Broker’s Account

The customs broker, Leon Senior of Executive Partners, says he wasn’t made aware he had been changed but had instead been instructed by the Private Wing’s lawyer to no longer use the tax-exempt status of the Private Wing to clear hospital goods, and he has complied.

He says he has handled imports for both UHWI and the Private Wing for about 25 years, though he didn’t handle the shipment for JACDEN.

Senior says he couldn’t have used the charity’s TRN and Tax Compliance Certificate (TCC) number, which is also required to clear goods duty-free, without authorization.

“I called Private Wing and said the hospital called me to use your TCC, and she said, ‘Go ahead, we had a meeting,’” Senior said, referring to a conversation years ago with the late manager of the Private Wing who died in 2022.

However, he didn’t answer when asked in a later WhatsApp message whether that authorization was only for one shipment or multiple ones.

How Application of Tax-Exempt Status Is Supposed to Work

At an April 28 Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hearing before Parliament, Acting Commissioner of Customs Kirk Benjamin suggested that a declaration is required from the tax-exempt entity stating that imported goods are for its use in order for duties to be waived.

Yet, the AudGen’s report only referenced declarations from UHWI—not the Private Wing—even though the charity was listed as one of the importers.

When asked by email whether Customs had received the required declarations from the Private Wing before clearing the goods and whether that would have been required, Customs claimed it wouldn’t be responding to 18° North due to confidentiality.

It’s since emerged from the PAC hearings that UHWI, though normally exempt from customs duty and GCT (sales tax) as a public body, hadn’t had a TCC since 2015 because it owed billions of dollars in other taxes and so was hampered in clearing goods duty-free on its own.

The Private Wing, being a registered charity with tax-exempt status and a similar name to UHWI, eventually became the hospital's mechanism to access those benefits.

Why Was UHWI Using Private Wing’s Tax-Exempt Status

Asked during the hearing whether Customs, having provided a list of UHWI’s and Private Wing’s imports to the Parliament, was satisfied that the goods were legitimately for UHWI, Benjamin said his team would be conducting an audit to make that determination.

Even if the goods were for UHWI, Benjamin told 18° North after the hearing, “You can’t use your status to bring in goods for someone else.”

But inside the hearing, he had suggested that permissibility could depend on a charity’s mandate. Section 5(2)(a) of the Customs Act allows approved charities to import goods duty-free if the Commissioner is satisfied they are required for the organization’s charitable purposes.

In this case, however, it doesn’t appear to have been the Private Wing who was the true importer maintaining control over the transaction. It was more like the Private Wing’s tax-exempt status being used by a related entity, which was then further used to benefit private companies. Under Jamaican law, the fraudulent use of another’s tax identification details to commit an offence can attract criminal penalties, as does using a charity for a purpose outside of its charitable mandate. Making or causing to be made a false declaration to Customs can also carry hefty financial penalties.

Background

The UHWI Private Wing began operations in 1990 and is situated at the hospital.

Though set up as a separate legal entity, the Private Wing lists the hospital as a shareholder, and, according to its website, it operates “interdependently” with UHWI.

The Private Wing was originally financed by individual donors and major corporations like National Commercial Bank, GraceKennedy and Wray & Nephew Ltd. It generates revenue from fee-paying patients seeking upgraded amenities and recorded a J$196.4 million (US$1.3 million) net profit in its 2024 financial year, the latest on file at the Companies Office.

Some of its revenue is used to pay for monthly use of the hospital’s senior doctors, nursing staff and equipment provided to the Private Wing, according to Thwaites. He says more than a billion dollars’ worth of equipment has also been donated to the hospital over the years.

Those activities appear consistent with the stated mandate of the Private Wing, which includes helping provide financing to the hospital and acquiring equipment for the benefit of itself, UHWI and its patients.

But while supporting the hospital on some fronts, some practices of the Private Wing may have crossed legal and governance lines.

Loan Agreements That Helped UHWI Bypass Procurement Rules

According to its financials, for at least two decades, the Private Wing has been making financial outlays on behalf of the hospital and then deducting these amounts from the monthly monies it owes UHWI.

The problem with this is that UHWI, as a public institution, is bound by government procurement rules designed to promote competition among suppliers, ensuring the best value for money, while the Private Wing has more flexibility in how it acquires services and goods.

In its report, the AudGen flagged two deals in June 2019 and March 2023 worth J$91.66 million (US$607,946) and US$354,334 (J$53.4 million), respectively where the Private Wing purchased a Philips Digital Diagnost C50 Dual Panel machine and mobile C-Arm equipment for UHWI with bank financing. Repayment was to be deducted from future payments owed to the hospital.

Thwaites defended the loan agreements, saying the hospital had made urgent requests for equipment it couldn’t afford. “We save them because they get the time to pay it off,” he said.

But while framed as support, the AudGen said the arrangements resulted in UHWI “bypassing procurement processes” to acquire equipment despite the finance ministry’s warning that the proposed agreement fell outside procurement rules and required a detailed submission before sign-off. The AudGen said there was no indication that this was done.

A source told 18° North that both purchases were made through International Med-X, which UHWI had recommended to the Private Wing. While UHWI didn’t confirm that, co-owner Chris Isley acknowledged the sales and said the Florida-based company is Jamaica’s authorized dealer for Philips.

That doesn’t mean, however, that there weren’t other brands UHWI could have explored, and Thwaites acknowledged that the Private Wing doesn’t follow public procurement rules.

But International Med-X appears to have enjoyed preferred standing with UHWI. According to the Integrity Commission’s contracts database, the company received 51 UHWI contracts worth about $120 million (US$1.1 million) between 2010 and 2020, all awarded via sole source or direct contracting.

Possible Breaches of the Public Procurement Law

The AudGen highlighted that it was weaknesses in UHWI’s procurement planning that had “led to an ad hoc approach that often resulted in the frequent use of sole-source procurement methods and breaches of established regulations governing public procurement.”

The Public Procurement Act of 2015 penalizes anyone who engages in any fraudulent practices to avoid the requirements of the Act with a fine of up to three million dollars and/or up to three years in prison.

While further investigations may be necessary to determine whether there were violations of this Act by the Private Wing, coming out of the AudGen’s report, Thwaites said, things will be different now. He said, at the time, the Private Wing didn’t know it was helping the hospital flout the rules.

“We are going to make sure they follow what they need to follow,” he said.

Need for Scrutiny

The way in which the charity has been operating has drawn scrutiny from governance advocates.

“You can’t have your TRN being used by somebody and you don’t know about it,” Robert Stephens of the Advocates Network said. “What’s the use of the damn law if you’re going to set up systems to circumvent them?”

Under the Charities Act, 2013 a charity’s status can be suspended or revoked not only for serious crimes like fraud or dishonesty but also conduct that harms public trust.

The Makeup of the Board

The Private Wing’s board has included some of Jamaica’s most prominent business leaders over the years, including R. Danny Williams, a former Cabinet minister and insurance executive, who died in September 2023, and William McConnell of J. Wray & Nephew fame who passed away in 2018.

Along with Thwaites, company documents list the charity’s current directors as Andrea Sutherland, Everton McDonald, Laurene Augier, Derek Mitchell, Vikram Dhiman, William David McConnell, Helen Myers, and Patrick Williams —names that stand out in the world of hospital administration, accounting, medicine and business, raising questions about how such controversial practices continued for so long under the watch of such an experienced board.

Reached by phone, McDonald referred questions to Thwaites, while Williams said he was “woefully ignorant of what is going on,” that he doesn’t listen to news reports and that when he does go to the meetings, “invariably, I’m late.” The others either weren’t reached or didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment.

Neither the Department of Co-operatives and Friendly Societies which oversees charities, the Integrity Commission which investigates procurement breaches, or the Tax Administration Jamaica which grants tax-exempt status, has answered whether they plan to take any enforcement action against the Private Wing. Benjamin of Jamaica Customs declined to say if the Private Wing is part of any investigation.

The Private Wing didn’t answer whether it had reported the alleged misuse of its tax-exempt status to the police.

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Editor’s Notes

Writing and editing help and graphic creation by ChatGPT.

The UHWI now has a temporary TCC of its own.

The exchange rate used to convert the contract awards database amounts between 2010-2020 is J$113.86:US$1, based on the average of the average sell rate for each of those years on the Bank of Jamaica website. All other rates were calculated based on the average of the average sell rates for each of the years 2019 to 2025, which equates to J$150.77:US$1.

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UHWI and Its Chief Doctor, Carl Bruce, Sued Neurosurgeon Roger Hunter for Defamation Mere Months Before Wider Hospital Controversies Mounted

Fresh Leadership Crisis Emerges at UHWI as Doctors and Nurses Move Against Chief Clinician, Dr. Carl Bruce

A lawsuit filed by the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) and its chief doctor, Carl Bruce, is seeking unspecified damages, a retraction and an apology from neurosurgeon Dr. Roger Hunter for allegedly making defamatory statements against them on social media and an injunction requiring that all those comments be deleted and that he be restrained from making any further defamatory statements about them.

Details of the suit, originally filed on Sept. 29, 2025, were delayed in being uploaded to the court’s electronic system for months and only became known after 18° North visited the Supreme Court on Monday.

In the claim, Bruce, who is also a neurosurgeon, complained that on multiple occasions beginning in April 2025, Hunter made false and defamatory statements on social media, including on a voicenote, calling him names like “bully,” “unrepentant criminal,” and “repeated violence producer,” and challenged his qualifications and claimed that he improperly benefited from contracts awarded to a company called Medical Technologies Limited.

Meanwhile, UHWI’s CEO Fitzgerald Mitchell, complained that Hunter made statements alleging that the publicly funded hospital is “corrupt,” “fails to achieve minimum standards,” is involved in “serious systemic failures,” and has failed to hold Bruce accountable for his actions.

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But in a turn of events since then, Mitchell has proceeded on accrued leave amid a police fraud squad investigation into a slew of procurement breaches flagged in an Auditor General’s report focused on UHWI that was made public on Jan. 14, 2026. Mitchell told 18° North “no response” when asked to comment on the report.

Meanwhile, last month, 18° North reported that genealogy records point to Bruce as having a family connection to Medical Technologies (MEDITECH) Limited, which was able to win tens of millions of dollars in contracts from the hospital between 2008 and 2020—the vast majority with only one bid received, which is allowed under certain circumstances. Three industry insiders —including MEDITECH’s former CEO and Hunter - have also hinted or alleged that Bruce, himself, is financially connected to the company. However, Bruce has reportedly denied having any ownership in MEDITECH, according to The Observer.

As Medical Chief of Staff in charge of clinical care at the hospital for around ten years, Bruce is an ex-officio member of the UHWI board of management, which sometimes interrogates procurement decisions, though it’s not known if any of MEDITECH’S contracts with UHWI were ever discussed at the board level. Before becoming Medical Chief of Staff, he was already a member of the board, listed as having served on its procurement committee beginning in May 2014, according to UHWI’s 2013-2014 annual report. It’s not clear when he ceased being a member of that committee. (18° North has requested that information.)

Jamaica’s Public Procurement Act, 2015 requires procuring entities to exclude participants where a conflict of interest is likely to impair the integrity of proceedings and outlines penalties for unlawful influence or deception in procurement processes, including a fine of up to three million dollars, and, or imprisonment for up to three years. There has been no finding that these provisions were breached in relation to Bruce, MEDITECH or UHWI.

Neither Bruce nor the hospital answered when asked if he had declared this apparent conflict of interest or recused himself from any discussions involving the company.

Doctors’ Complaints Against Bruce

Bruce is also now facing a revolt from the clinical staff at the hospital, which he oversees.

On Feb. 27, 18° North reported that UHWI interim CEO Eric Hosin, Board Chairman Patrick Hylton, and University of the West Indies, Mona Principal Densil Williams, had requested two additional weeks to investigate complaints raised by clinical staff about Bruce in a Jan. 16, 2026 letter signed by 13 clinical heads at the hospital, which is more than half of the full cohort of clinical heads at the facility.

Call For Carl Bruce's Resignation 19 01 2026 Doc 22

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The letter of no confidence outlined a series of complaints about the management style and human resources practices of the Senior Director of Clinical Services (SDCS), understood to be Bruce. However, the letter didn’t name him. It’s understood that the letter referred to Bruce as the SDCS because the clinicians contend that the Medical Chief of Staff title is not used in the Jamaican healthcare system. (A Feb. 27, 2026 memo from UHWI Acting CEO Eric Hosin seen by 18° North instructed members of staff to stop using the term Medical Chief of Staff but didn’t say what term should be used instead.)

Among a litany of other issues, the letter references three complaints alleging verbal and physical abuse of staff by the SDCS and criticizes what signatories describe as failures by the hospital to properly investigate the matters. 18° North has not independently verified the allegations, and no findings of wrongdoing have been publicly announced.

Bruce was contacted for comment on the allegations in the letter, but he didn’t respond.

The letter also notes that two court cases involving allegations of abuse and assault by the SDCS are currently before the courts, and therefore the SDCS “should not remain as the public image” of the hospital while those matters are unresolved.

One of those cases stems from a 2007 alleged altercation involving the same neurosurgeon Hunter. Hunter was last May suspended from practicing for a year by the Medical Council of Jamaica (MCJ) — the public body that disciplines doctors — in part because of the voicenote, according to meeting minutes obtained under the Access to Information Act. The MCJ, meanwhile, hasn’t announced any action against Bruce.

Hunter, for his part, told 18° North he hasn’t been served with the September 2025 suit from Bruce and UHWI, but was adamant he wouldn’t be apologizing.

“Justice is still alive in Jamaica, and justice will know what to do with that suit,” Hunter said.

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As a journalist acutely aware of the abysmal state of the industry, as soon as I saw the headline of Peter Espeut’s Feb. 6, 2026 column “Needed: Investigative Journalism”, I was invested. Espeut paints a dismal yet accurate picture of the industry: one that is in dire need of the funding, time and commitment necessary to produce quality journalism that holds those in power to account. He also criticizes media houses for their allegiances to political parties and merely churning out press releases, both symptoms of an industry in crisis. But while the problem was accurately portrayed by him, any solutions were lacking.

Before I proceed, I will define my terms. An investigative journalist differs from a “regular” journalist, who may report daily on any number of occurrences, from a fire to a judicial outcome to crime. They tell people what is happening, provide valuable and verified information, and paint a picture of the local, regional and international community.

An investigative journalist is a rare breed, someone who is willing to spend many hours reading documents, conducting surveillance and interviewing dozens, if not hundreds of people. Investigative journalism provides context, and consists of tedious factchecking, reading budget documents and searching archives. It is hard work, and work that is expensive for any outlet given the time it takes to complete an investigation. To spell it out further, the high expenses can be attributed to the journalist’s wages. If an investigation takes years, which many do, it is difficult to convince a media house to commit to the expenditure if there is no guarantee of a particular outcome.

Yet, investigative journalists ultimately “play a watchdog role in society by calling out such illicit activities and bringing them, not only to the attention of the public, but often to the attention of law enforcement and regulatory authorities,” according to a 2022 European Union academic paper.

Investigative journalism, and journalism as a body of work, are both essential pillars of a healthy democracy. They are a “critical part of the checks and balances that make democracy work,” Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has said. Imagine if there were no journalists, no new, reliable information provided to you every day. How could you make decisions? How could you trust authorities? How would you know what is happening in your neighborhood, your country, and the world?

Given the rise of authoritarianism and the prevalence of involvement of big tech in the dissemination of information, this scenario is unfortunately becoming more of a reality.

Therefore, it is necessary to address the source of degradation in the industry.

It is common knowledge that the media landscape has been decimated since the advent of big tech and companies like Google and Facebook. Advertising dollars have disappeared, leading journalists and companies to get creative. Some business models for some legacy media houses, such as subscriptions, are working. (In Jamaica, most of the main legacy media houses are in crisis- Radio Jamaica Limited recently received court approval for a corporate restructuring that will take two radio stations off the air temporarily).

Some journalists are finding success with platforms such as Substack. However, as AI is causing another monumental shift in the ground on which journalism stands, the industry is suffering.

Academia and the private and non-profit sectors have proposed solutions, and while most come with downsides, most are worth trying.

These include government involvement in the provision of news, either through tax subsidies or direct investment; legislating big tech to pay for the journalism they disseminate on their platforms; the establishment of commissions to determine best practices to save the industry; public education campaigns surrounding media literacy and the importance of journalism in a democracy; appealing to large news outlets to work together to develop propositions to advertisers that will become viable again, and relaxing antitrust rules for news organizations so they can negotiate with big tech for appropriate fees for the use of their content. (Some of these suggestions are taken from this UNESCO paper).

In the Jamaican context, some of these suggestions are worth considering. However, this requires the will to support journalism, which requires an increase in media literacy, as well as the acknowledgment of journalism as a public good. Unfortunately, rabid and blind partisanship remains a barrier to this. Partisanship also remains a barrier to the investment of public funds in the provision of journalism, as Jamaicans would likely be suspicious of any news created with public funds. However, as Jamaica matures as a democracy, which it indeed is, this will likely become a viable option, especially as the country’s finances continue their trajectory on a path to more predictability and stability.

A Jamaican solution could involve the creation of a non-profit entity that receives funding from the government or other non-state actors. In order to circumvent inevitable accusations of bias and cronyism, it could be administered by the Press Association of Jamaica or independent, veteran journalists. Its sole mandate would be to support investigative journalism and ultimately root out the corruption that continues to plague the country. Such an entity would likely also attract financial and institutional support of other countries or international partners with similar goals. In order to encourage transparency and eliminate accusations of partisanship, this entity would be subjected to rigorous checks and balances and journalists would be invited to submit applications for projects they would like to pursue. Its annual financial statements would remain in the public realm for scrutiny. Ideally, this non-profit would be responsible for the creation of multiple investigations on an annual basis that focus on accountability and corruption.

In conclusion, I have hoped to fill in the gaps left by Mr. Espeut’s column. I hope to have provided some solutions, that while not immediate, may address the state of the industry on a longer-term basis. The future of Jamaica depends on it.

####

Kate Chappell has, in the past, contributed stories to 18° North.

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Many years ago, I was sitting in the office of my doctor, who visibly wrestled with which lab to refer me to in order to get some basic bloodwork done. “Where should I send you to?” she openly asked herself.

Sometime before, she had easily referred my mom to a more expensive lab outside her office building for similar basic bloodwork even though one was situated a few steps from her office that offered a substantial discount to patients of doctors in that building — like her.

I sat there puzzled: why is this a headscratcher?

I had two thoughts: Maybe she thinks I don’t have as much money as my mom and would therefore benefit from the savings? Or…did she have a stake in the lab which she didn’t want to disclose and thought better than to refer me there because I am an investigative reporter?

To her credit, she referred me to the cheaper, more convenient lab. However, upon later research, I found that indeed, my doctor, who has now passed away, was professionally connected to the more expensive lab.

I thought to myself, “She should be disclosing this to her patients. My mom paid more for no good reason.” I told my mom but not my doctor because I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.

But now, years later, I see that what I experienced as a small ethical lapse was actually a window into a bigger problem now surfacing at Jamaica’s premier publicly-funded hospital, University Hospital of the West indies (UHWI).

And just as that incident planted a seed of distrust in me of the medical profession, this bigger issue threatens to undermine public confidence in doctors on a wider scale, which could cause patients to delay seeking care, to disregard medical advice, and to risk eroding their support for vital public health programs.

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Fast Forward To the Problems at UHWI

UHWI, in the country’s capital, Kingston, is where students from other Caribbean countries come to train as doctors and where other local hospitals send patients when they don’t have the technical capacity to care for them.

But at UHWI, patients can wait hours on end to get care. And when care finally arrives, basic medications and supplies are out of stock, leaving doctors little choice but to refer patients off-site.

Some doctors have turned this shortage into opportunity, establishing medical supply companies. One of those companies, as reported by The Gleaner in May 2011 and investigated by the then Office of the Contractor General (OCG), sold to patients, and as I later found from the OCG’s own public contracts database, the hospital, itself. (The OCG oddly found that there was no conflict of interest. It also found that the doctor in question, Peter Johnson— who was then head of radiology at UHWI — didn’t use his position to, directly or indirectly, influence patients’ purchasing behavior.)

The doctors are supposed to declare their conflicts of interest, but a document recently shared with me suggests resistance among doctors in doing so.

The document summarizes concerns stemming from an October 27, 2021 meeting of the UHWI arm of the Association of Government Medical Consultants (AGMC) — the senior doctors. Amid the litany of seemingly serious concerns like organizational structure, chain of command, overdue gratuities, lack of basic equipment and supplies, and having little say in which items are procured, they also seemed resistant to complying with a human resources directive to begin declaring their conflicts of interest — wanting to know, “What the justification is for this requirement.”

They also wanted to know, “What ‘standards’ are they referring to regarding other Medical Institutions demanding this of its employees?”

“Is this a requirement in other public entities?”

Consultants Concerns Stemming From Oct

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It’s discouraging that in an age where issues of good governance and best practices have been widely circulated, this is Jamaica’s senior educated set —our doctors — that feel they need to ask that question.

Is the concern that disclosure could cost doctors business? Even if it did, the senior doctors, especially, are already well compensated. One UHWI consultant recently showed me a pay stub reflecting monthly gross earnings of roughly $1.55 million (US$9,884), above the US$8,405 that the average Jamaican takes home in a year.

And what about disclosing to us patients? Do they not care what we pay?

If doctors are going to be capitalizing on an opportunity to sell medical supplies that the hospital doesn’t supply, the least they can do is to be upfront and say to the patient, “Here are three options where the devices can be purchased. Bear in mind, I own 50% of Company X, so shop around and do what’s best for you.”

What’s Required by the Medical Council of Jamaica

The Medical Council of Jamaica’s (MCJ) own ethics handbook instructs doctors to “always disclose to your patients any interest you may have in pharmacies and other health care or medical establishments to which you may be referring them.”

The handbook also states that when it comes to government contracts, doctors should disclose for any goods or services being offered for purchase their direct or indirect financial interest — including those of immediate family members — and that non-disclosure may amount to “serious professional misconduct.”

Jamaica’s Public Procurement Act, 2015 also requires procuring entities to exclude participants where a conflict of interest is likely to impair the integrity of proceedings and outlines penalties for unlawful influence or deception in procurement processes, including a fine of up to three million dollars, and, or imprisonment for up to three years.

And yet, earlier this month, 18° North reported that local medical supplies company, Medical Technologies (MEDITECH) Limited, despite having a family connection to UHWI’s chief doctor, Carl Bruce, was able to win tens of millions of dollars in contracts from the hospital between 2008 and 2020—the vast majority with only one bid received.

As Medical Chief of Staff in charge of clinical care at the hospital for around ten years, Bruce is an ex-officio member of the UHWI board of management, which sometimes interrogates procurement decisions, though it’s not known if any of MEDITECH’S contracts with UHWI were ever discussed at the board level.

Neither he nor the hospital answered when asked if he had declared this apparent conflict of interest or recused himself from any discussions involving the company. Three industry insiders —including MEDITECH’s former CEO - have hinted or alleged that Bruce, himself, is financially connected to the company, though Bruce has reportedly denied having any ownership in MEDITECH.

How This Can Affect Patient Care?

From the summary notes, the consultants also noted, “We have heard repeatedly that consultants employed to the UHWI are not only operating in direct competition with the hospital but are often accused of even sabotaging the hospital for their own benefit.”

Translated, Opposition Spokesperson on Health Dr. Alfred Dawes told me this could mean —without actually hearing of such allegations — that where UHWI-employed doctors, who also have connections to private companies doing CT scans, for example, may refer patients to that private entity instead of to UHWI, which provides the same CT scan service. Those conflicted doctors, he said, may be motivated to keep UHWI’s machines inoperable for as long as possible rather than report them to be repaired in the shortest possible timeframe.

To claims like this, the UHWI arm of the AGMC in its meeting notes questioned, “Is there any proof of this? If it is hearsay, then those statements are not justified and should be retracted and no further such statements made without offering proof.”

I don’t support making statements that are unproven, but why do we need proof of corruption in order to proactively prevent it? Declaration of conflicts of interest isn’t a punishment. It’s merely a prophylactic.

Already, the public’s confidence in UHWI has been shaken after a damning Auditor General report in January, which found that UHWI had failed to produce procurement documentation for 51 contracts valued at more than $521 million (US$3.3 million) and had misused its tax-exempt status to facilitate imports for several private companies, leading to revenue losses of more than $23 million (US$147,163).

When recently contacted, the UHWI representative of the AGMC since 2019, Dr. Myrton Smith, seemed to understand the importance for doctors to declare their conflicts of interest. “We do not have an issue with that,” he said. He added that the doctors’ main issue from 2021 was the actual wording of the conflict-of-interest declaration form which would “sign away benefits” that had previously been negotiated for doctors who work in the public system to also work privately.

However, that concern about the wording was nowhere in the summary notes. And when Smith was asked for a copy of the document to prove that this was in fact the case, he said it was confidential and referred me to the human resources division of UHWI, which never sent the form despite my request.

Also requested of UHWI’s HR Senior Director, Duane Nelson, and the interim CEO, Eric Hosin, was whether the initiative to declare conflicts of interest was ever implemented. Smith said he doesn’t know of any of the doctors who have been on staff having to sign one but was unaware whether this was a requirement for new hires.

Another UHWI senior doctor, who is affiliated with a medical supplies company, told me he doesn’t declare his interest because his bosses don’t — a telling admission about institutional culture. However, he said the company with which he is affiliated also doesn’t do business with the government, nor does he recommend patients to buy supplies from the company.

In my view, annual declarations of conflicts of interest by all doctors— whether senior or junior, whether at UHWI or elsewhere in the private or public sectors —should be implemented at all institutions and should attract penalties if not disclosed to those institutions and to patients.

There should also be a requirement, as in the United States with the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, that pharmaceutical and medical device companies report payments made to physicians. Such reporting should be made public in a searchable database so that patients and the government’s accountability entities like the police, the Integrity Commission and the Auditor General’s Department, can be more informed about doctors’ conflicts. If companies fail to report these payments to doctors, they should be barred from getting government business.

The Integrity Commission may also need to start proactively looking at companies winning state healthcare business to see if they’re connected to doctors and whether there have been any procurement breaches.

The MCJ should require that a sign be hung in each doctor’s office reminding patients that when a doctor makes a referral, the doctors are to immediately and voluntarily disclose whether they have any conflicts.

Until such a system is up and running and to ensure we’re getting impartial medical advice, patients, too, may have to start asking the uncomfortable question the next time we’re referred: “Doc, do you or any of your family members have any financial connection to that business?”

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Disclaimer: I, through my company, Global Reporters for the Caribbean, the parent company of 18° North, had provided production services to UHWI in or around 2018.

Editor’s Notes:
Dr. Alfred Dawes was also accused of being disingenuous recently by the youth arm of the Jamaica Labour Party, Young Jamaica, after speculation mounted that the company of Opposition MP Dennis Gordon, known as JACDEN, was one of the private companies who benefited from the misuse of UHWI’s tax-exempt status. Dawes, along with his photo, had been listed on JACDEN’s website as a consultant at the time of the Auditor General’s report. However, Dawes has since said he is not affiliated with JACDEN nor has he ever worked for the company, that his image was used without his permission, and that when he found out about it, he asked for his image to be removed. (I couldn’t find the picture when I recently went to the website.) JACDEN, for its part, has maintained its works with UHWI are compliant and didn’t cause or direct any of the cited procurement failings. Opposition Leader Mark Golding said at a Jan. 29 news conference that he had spoken to MP Gordon who maintains that he had done nothing wrong.

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Records Point to Family Link Between UHWI Medical Chief of Staff and MEDITECH, Raising Conflict-of-Interest Questions

A fresh management crisis may be unfolding at Jamaica’s premier publicly-funded hospital, the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), as senior doctors and other clinical staff seek to remove the institution’s chief doctor, Carl Bruce.

The development comes weeks after UHWI’s Chief Executive Officer Fitzgerald Mitchell proceeded on accrued leave amid a police fraud squad investigation into procurement breaches flagged in an Auditor General’s report made public on Jan. 14, 2026.

Now, attention has shifted to clinical leadership following a Jan. 16, 2026 letter of no confidence submitted to the hospital’s board by senior clinicians.

The letter outlined a litany of complaints against Bruce, the hospital’s Medical Chief of Staff (MCS), mostly related to his management style and human resource practices that led to an initial meeting with management in January.

Now, coming out of another meeting on Friday morning involving dozens of consultants and nursing staff, interim CEO Eric Hosin, Board Chairman Patrick Hylton, and University of the West Indies, Mona Principal Densil Williams, 18° North understands that UHWI management has requested two additional weeks to investigate the complaints raised by clinical staff about Bruce.

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The letter of no confidence signed by 13 clinical heads, which is more than half of the full cohort of the hospital’s clinical heads, outlined a series of complaints against the Senior Director of Clinical Services (SDCS), understood to be Bruce. They refer to him as the SDCS because the clinicians contend that the Medical Chief of Staff title is not used in the Jamaican healthcare system—a claim that hasn’t been independently verified by 18° North.

The later stated, “We wish to make it known that we have lost all confidence in the ability of the SDCS/“MCS” to represent the interests of the staff and do not wish him to continue to do so.” It continued, “It is impossible to build the high-performance team required to advance the UHWI without the engagement, empowerment and motivation of the staff.”

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Among the allegations are claims that the SDCS made unilateral decisions without consulting clinical leadership, including the reported redirection of approximately $75 million raised through the Sagicor Sigma “Legacy Run” for the hospital’s pediatric unit to other areas of the institution without consultation with the head of pediatrics.

Doctors also contend that the SDCS bears at least some responsibility for operational problems that have contributed to persistent overcrowding in the Accident and Emergency department, which they say stems partly from insufficient bed availability for medical admissions.

Additional complaints outlined in the letter include the cancellation of senior residents’ contracts without consultation with department heads; proposed changes to contracts affecting unionized doctors; refusal to authorize certain payments owed to junior staff; and the removal of equipment while in use, allegedly for treatment of the SDCS’ private patients.

Bruce has been contacted for comment on the allegations in the letter, but he hasn’t yet responded to an email sent on Friday afternoon.

The letter further references three complaints alleging verbal and physical abuse of staff and criticizes what signatories describe as failures by the hospital to properly investigate the matters. 18° North has not independently verified the allegations, and no findings of wrongdoing have been publicly announced.

The letter also notes that two court cases involving allegations of abuse and assault by the SDCS are currently before the courts, and therefore the SDCS “should not remain as the public image” of the hospital while those matters are unresolved. One of those cases stems from a 2007 alleged altercation involving fellow neurosurgeon Roger Hunter.

Two clinical heads who attended Friday’s meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity told 18° North that the alleged longstanding pattern of verbal and physical abuse by Bruce and the “toxic environment” were strongly emphasized during the meeting.

According to the doctors, the board chairman told staff that due process must be followed and requested two additional weeks to investigate the claims of alleged abuse before reconvening with clinicians. Chairman Hylton didn’t answer a call seeking comment. Principal Williams didn’t answer a WhatsApp message. Interim CEO Hosin was contacted this evening via email. Any meaningful response received will be reflected in a subsequent update.

In the meantime, the anonymous clinical heads said clinical staff will boycott meetings convened or chaired by Bruce.

“We will no longer be allowing him to lead us in his current role as Senior Director of Clinical Services,” one of the clinical heads stated.

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Editing help from ChatGPT.

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Records Point to Family Link Between UHWI Medical Chief of Staff and MEDITECH, Raising Conflict-of-Interest Questions

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Dr. Carl Bruce, Medical Chief of Staff at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), appears to be related to a principal of Medical Technologies (MEDITECH) Limited, a medical equipment supplier that has done tens of millions of Jamaican dollars’ worth of business with the state-supported hospital, based on records reviewed by 18° North.

The apparent family relationship, identified through a genealogy search at the Registrar General’s Department (RGD) and other sources, raises questions about whether Bruce had a duty to declare a potential conflict of interest, given his administrative role and board position at UHWI. It also revives longstanding questions about who controls MEDITECH, and whether Bruce has or had any financial connection to the company of which he has denied ownership.

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Questions about MEDITECH’s ownership structure date back to a 2016 share dispute in court, where it emerged that the company had a “silent partner.”

An interlocutory injunction granted in that case — before the substantive issues were heard — restrained the parties from publicly disclosing the silent partner’s identity before the trial commenced, citing a prior agreement between the parties due to a “potential conflict of interest.” The injunction didn’t explain the nature of that conflict and only referred to the individual as “A”.

The injunction described the silent partner as a lender “or” investor, which suggests the financial relationship may not necessarily be one of shareholding.

It further described the individual as a cousin of Trudy-Ann Ricketts, a shareholder and director of MEDITECH.

Family ties

At the time of MEDITECH’s incorporation in 2007, Ricketts listed a Pepper, St. Elizabeth address when her ownership of 5,000 of the company’s 50,000 issued shares was recorded.

Bruce, a neurosurgeon, also appears to have family ties to Pepper, with the funeral of his mother, Phyllis Adina Bennett, being held there in 2024, according to a funeral program obtained by 18⁰ North.

Genealogy records at the RGD reviewed by 18° North indicate that Bennett was the aunt of Michael Ricketts, Trudy-Ann Ricketts’ father, which would make Bruce and Ricketts first cousins once removed.

Ricketts became a MEDITECH shareholder and director at age 19, and, at the time, was listed as a venture capitalist and businesswoman. According to her LinkedIn profile — since removed — she graduated four years later in 2011 from the University of Technology, Jamaica with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. Up to January 2026, her profile listed her as the office manager of MEDITECH.

The ownership question

The injunction gave two competing narratives about how MEDITECH was formed and financed and why its ownership structure remains opaque.

According to an affidavit cited in the injunction from Athol Hamilton — another MEDITECH director and holder of 5,000 shares — he, having a background as a biologist, and Ricketts were seeking a business opportunity around 2007 when “one of Trudy’s cousins,” also described as his longtime friend, suggested opportunities in medical supplies.

Hamilton further stated that the individual later advanced funds to MEDITECH but didn’t want to become a shareholder due to concerns about a potential conflict of interest given his status at the time. As a result, it was agreed between himself, the silent partner and Winfield Boban — a business associate of the silent partner — that Boban would hold some shares on the silent partner’s behalf as security for the advances.

Reached by phone, Hamilton said he didn’t want to speak with 18° North.

According to company documents, those 40,000 shares — representing the majority of MEDITECH’s 50,000 issued shares at the time — were in 2008 registered in the name of Boban, an American medical devices executive. In 2009, the shares were then transferred to Jamaican attorney Donovan Williams, who became the Member of Parliament for Kingston Central in 2020 and is now State Minister in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.

Boban, who sued MEDITECH in 2016 over ownership of the shares, offered a different account, claiming he, Hamilton, Ricketts and the silent partner agreed to form the company. He told 18⁰ North in 2025 that the company was “my concept” and that Williams was merely holding the shares on his behalf because he wasn’t living in Jamaica at the time. It’s not clear how the share dispute was ultimately resolved as the Supreme Court told 18⁰ North the case is sealed.

In May 2025, Williams, in a publicly-released statement, acknowledged holding the shares in trust and said his lawyers were making arrangements to transfer them to the beneficial owner following the resolution of a share dispute in 2022. A court filing in a separate case involving the Integrity Commission to which all MPs have to report their financial holdings, did reveal that Williams had disclosed holding the MEDITECH shares on Boban’s behalf in 2020, but this may have been before the share dispute case was concluded.

As of January 2026, Williams had surrendered the 40,000 shares back to the company, though they haven’t been reallocated to anyone. There was also a Beneficial Ownership form filed, according to the Companies Office. However, information from that document, while accessible to government procuring entities upon written request, can’t be accessed by journalists or the general public.

Government contracts

MEDITECH drew public attention last year after Opposition Spokesperson on Health Dr. Alfred Dawes alleged that the company overcharged the government’s South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA) for a neurosurgical drill — a claim MEDITECH denied and for which it sued Dawes for defamation. (Dawes claims he was never served.)

18⁰ North later reported that MEDITECH had secured more than 220 government contracts worth over J$200 million (US$1.8 million) between 2008 and 2020 from various public bodies, including SERHA, according to the Integrity Commission’s Quarterly Contract Awards database. Thirty-five of those contracts were from UHWI worth $68 million (US$625,345), and more than 80% of those UHWI contracts were awarded through processes in which only a single bid was received — a practice permitted under Jamaican law in certain circumstances.

It’s not known if MEDITECH continues to be a supplier to the hospital because the database doesn’t go past 2020.

Allegations and responses

Following the revelation that MEDITECH had a silent partner, a May 2025 voicenote broadcast on Andre Stephens’ PDTV YouTube program and purportedly attributed to fellow neurosurgeon Dr. Roger Hunter alleged that Bruce was MEDITECH’s “substantive owner.”

Hunter, who has accused Bruce of assault in a separate legal matter, told 18° North that his assertions of Bruce’s ownership were based on his interactions in the industry. He also said Ricketts told him she was Bruce’s niece. (Ricketts is around 19 years younger than Bruce.) Ricketts didn’t respond to questions about the alleged family relationship or whether Bruce played any role in MEDITECH’s business with the government.

Bruce is being represented in the assault case by Williams, according to the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Court. But, according to his co-counsel Tom Tavares-Finson — another government parliamentarian —he is now out of the matter.

It was following Hunter’s voicenote in May 2025 that 18⁰ North called Boban directly to ask about the MEDITECH share dispute case.

While not offering any documents, Boban hinted that Bruce was involved in the case.

Asked about the status of the shares and why they weren’t yet returned to him and why they were then still in Williams’ name, Boban told 18⁰ North to ask Bruce’s attorney, whom he suggested was Williams. However, when later asked to clarify why he described Williams as Bruce’s attorney if Boban was presumably paying Williams to hold shares on his behalf, Boban, through his lawyer, issued a statement saying his earlier remarks didn’t constitute an official response, though the lawyer didn’t deny what Boban initially said.

The statement added that Boban has had no involvement in the management, operations or decision-making of MEDITECH after 2013 when he resigned as CEO. Boban, thereafter, established another medical supplies company, Surgix Jamaica Ltd., which competes with MEDITECH.

A former employee of Surgix who requested anonymity told 18⁰ North that Boban had repeatedly mentioned to staff members, including the former employee, when he had competitive issues with MEDITECH that Bruce was the primary decisionmaker and owner of MEDITECH. The source said Boban also mentioned that Bruce was involved in the shareholder lawsuit he filed against MEDITECH in 2016, and that Ricketts told the source directly that she was Bruce’s niece.

In a statement issued on May 26, 2025, UHWI CEO Fitzgerald Mitchell defended Bruce, saying, “Dr Bruce is not a shareholder, nor a director in any company that compromises his duties at the UHWI,” according to a report by the Jamaica Observer.

Mitchell is currently on three months’ accrued leave while Jamaica’s police force conducts an investigation following a report by the Auditor General, made public on Jan. 13, 2026, which found a slew of procurement breaches at UHWI. Mitchell said “no response” when asked to comment on the report.

The Observer also reported that in the same statement Bruce said: “I do not own, and have never held, shares in Medical Technologies Limited, nor are any shares being held on my behalf, either directly or indirectly, by anyone associated with the entity or otherwise.

“In my professional capacity, I have provided consultation and conducted due diligence in the health sector from time to time. Any attempt to malign my work or disseminate false narratives linking me to ownership of Medical Technologies Limited is defamatory and will be subject to appropriate legal recourse.”

Bruce did file a declaration action against Hunter in September 2025. However, as of Jan. 15, 2026, the Supreme Court said the specifics of the claim haven’t yet been uploaded to its electronic system. 18° North reached out to the court’s media liaison officer on Feb. 6, 2026 to see if the case had been uploaded, but didn’t yet receive a response.

At a groundbreaking of a new building at UHWI on Aug. 7, 2025, 18⁰ North asked Bruce directly if he was behind MEDITECH — as opposed to whether he owned shares — but he wouldn’t answer the question. Later asked by email if he was a lender or paid consultant to MEDITECH, he also didn’t answer.

At the same groundbreaking, UHWI’s Mitchell told 18° North that he hadn’t examined whether Bruce was a consultant to MEDITECH, saying he hadn’t seen Bruce’s quote referenced in the press release. *18° North has not been able to independently verify the veracity of some of the Observer’s reporting from that release.

Mitchell also said UHWI’s legal team had reviewed whether Bruce was connected to MEDITECH and concluded that “there is no truth in that.”

Oversight questions

On May 28, 2025, two days after UHWI’s statement, the Medical Council of Jamaica (MCJ), the public body that disciplines doctors, voted to suspend Hunter from practice for one year, citing the voicenote among the reasons, according to meeting minutes obtained under the Access to Information Act.

Asked whether the Council had investigated Hunter’s claim about Bruce’s alleged involvement in MEDITECH, MCJ Registrar Jean Williams-Johnson said the matter was not one the Council would act on, describing it as an issue “being investigated by the hospital.”

That stance contrasts with the Council’s own ethics manual, which requires doctors to declare any direct or indirect financial interest in any goods or services — including that of immediate family members — before participating in discussion which would lead to the purchase by a public authority of those goods or services. Failure to do so, it states, may amount to “serious professional misconduct.”

Jamaica’s Public Sector Procurement Regulations, 2008, which were in effect up until 2019, also requires public officers who are directly or indirectly involved in procurement proceedings to declare potential conflicts of interest and personal relationships and refrain from taking part in any decision-making or implementation of contracts where such a conflict exists. A personal relationship was defined in that law as one by blood or marriage up to the third civil degree.

The more recent Public Procurement Act, 2015, now in effect, also requires procuring entities to exclude participants where a conflict of interest is likely to impair the integrity of proceedings and outlines penalties for unlawful influence or deception in procurement processes. There has been no finding that these provisions were breached in relation to Bruce, MEDITECH or UHWI.

Neither Bruce nor UHWI answered an email as to whether Bruce had disclosed his apparent family relationship with Ricketts to UHWI or recused himself from any discussions involving MEDITECH. As Medical Chief of Staff in charge of clinical care at the hospital for around ten years, he’s an ex-officio member of the UHWI board of management, which sometimes interrogates procurement decisions, though it’s not known if any of MEDITECH’S contracts with UHWI were ever discussed at the board level.

Ultimately, there is no hard evidence in the public domain that Bruce had or has a financial interest in MEDITECH. And according to the Observer, he denies owning the company. But with three industry insiders alleging or suggesting he’s behind the company —including MEDITECH’s former CEO —plus a genealogy search pointing to a family link, investigators probing procurement breaches at UHWI may therefore need to determine whether Bruce had a duty to declare this apparent relationship, whether he declared it, and also whether he is financially connected to MEDITECH.

####

Editor’s Notes:

Editing help from ChatGPT.

The exchange rate used was J$108.74:US$1, the average of the average sell rates on the Bank of Jamaica’s website for the years 2008 to 2020 during which government contracts were awarded to MEDITECH.

*The May 26, 2025 press release confirmed to 18° North to be written by UHWI’s communications representative, Kerry-Ann Robinson, only has some of the information reported by the Observer. Robinson said she couldn’t attest to the genuineness of another release that was circulating on social media from where it appears the Observer took quotes purportedly attributed to Bruce. That release said Bruce isn’t a director in any company that compromises his duties at UHWI, while the Observer reported that it stated he wasn’t a shareholder or director in any such company. Bruce was, though, asked by 18° North via email if he disputed the quotes reported by the Observer, and he didn’t respond.

In January 2026, MEDITECH increased its authorized share capital from 100,000 to 400,000 shares.

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Scrutiny Over J$31.5M Neurosurgical Drill Deal Deepens As SERHA Procurement History With MEDITECH Raises A ‘Red Flag’

Who Owns MEDITECH? MP’s Trustee Role Tests Jamaica’s Ownership Disclosure Law

MEDITECH’s Lack of Beneficial Ownership Return Triggers Probe By Entity That Registers and Renews Government Contractors

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Minister of State in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security and Member of Parliament for Kingston Central Donovan Williams is no longer listed as the majority shareholder of Medical Technologies (MEDITECH) Ltd.

The 40,000 shares he held have been surrendered back to the company, based on a check made at the Companies Office of Jamaica by 18⁰ North on Feb. 2, 2026.

MEDITECH drew public attention last year after Opposition Spokesperson on Health Dr. Alfred Dawes alleged that the company overcharged the government’s South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA) for a neurosurgical drill, which MEDITECH denied doing. The company, along with Williams, sued Dawes for defamation. Dawes, meanwhile, claims he was never served.

Williams had maintained that he, being an attorney, was only holding the 40,000 MEDITECH shares in trust, and that, following the resolution of a shareholder dispute in 2022, his attorneys had prepared the necessary documents to facilitate the passing of the shares to the beneficial owner.

However, he didn’t disclose who that beneficial owner is, prompting questions as to who exactly the government has been doing business with and whether any procurement laws have been breached?

Between 2008 and 2020, 18⁰ North later reported, MEDITECH had received 223 government contracts worth J$201 million (US$1.85 million) from various state entities — two-thirds of which had received only one tender, based on information contained in the Integrity Commission’s Quarterly Contract Awards database.

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Since Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Oct. 28, the government has only provided food packages routinely to a quarter of the more than 600,000 persons that it says are in need.

That’s according to an analysis by 18º North based on disclosures by the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) — the state entity leading the relief effort —that about 396,000 packages had been disbursed as of its Dec. 24 posting, and each package is supposed to serve four people and last, at most, five days.

The situation has been particularly paltry over the last two weeks heading into Christmas.

For one day last week, ODPEM, which falls under the Office of the Prime Minister, reported delivering as few as 625 packages to 74 communities, and despite queries, it hasn’t explained why.

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On the night of Dec. 18, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar addressed Trinidad and Tobago citizens with a demand for compliance built around U.S. visa vulnerability. She described public criticism of Washington as “the height of hypocrisy and unkindness,” and asked, “Which Trini wants their visa cut? So behave yourself.” Speaking at a UNC Christmas function, she warned, “Careful you don’t end up like Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica… bad-mouthing the US and guess what happened… all their visas rescinded now.”

She grounded national security in U.S. protection — “Understand where our help comes from. Understand who can protect and defend Trinidad and Tobago.” She stated that “right now, there is only one country in the world” capable of doing so.

Those remarks placed Trinidad and Tobago inside a regional security moment unfolding under the CARICOM chairmanship of Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness. As Chair, Holness convenes heads of government, sets the bloc’s political agenda, coordinates common positions, and carries responsibility for preserving the Caribbean’s Zone of Peace posture as member states take decisions with basin-wide security and economic consequences with potential fallout to industries like tourism, a main driver of Caribbean economies like Jamaica’s.

The Caribbean now stands at a crossroads.

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The Jamaican government has announced it won’t be publishing the names of the missing or the dead from Hurricane Melissa.

At a Nov. 26 press briefing, the head of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), Commander Alvin Gayle, was asked by 18º North why is it that the police can routinely publish the names of Jamaicans who go missing, but in the case of those who went missing after the storm, the government has chosen not to release the names?

Gayle answered that for both the missing and the dead, “The police and the families are treating with those names as per their own protocols. So, we will not be publishing these names.”

However, he didn’t say what those protocols were and why he wouldn’t be releasing the names. The Jamaica Constabulary Force wouldn’t comment.

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The Toll of those Missing and Dead in Jamaica

The government has determined that there were 45 confirmed deaths from the hurricane, which when broken down by parish, show that St. Elizabeth and Westmoreland recorded the most at 18 and 15, respectively. Thirty-two deaths were “undetermined,” and 16 persons are missing.

However, since the passage of the storm on Oct. 28, there have been doubts about the number of deaths.

Those concerns were elevated when Member of Parliament for Westmoreland Eastern, Dr. Dayton Campbell, told the House of Representatives on Nov. 4 that he knew of 25 deaths in his constituency alone at a time when the government’s official count for the whole country was 32.

Campbell also revealed that while funeral homes came for bodies in some instances, community members had buried bodies in other instances.

To that, Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness responded that the accurate account of deaths was “of particular concern” to him, and he pledged on the same day that every Jamaican who died as a result of the storm would be counted.

“We will recover all bodies, even if we have to exhume, and we will go through a process of proper identification and, where possible, determination of death. The science is there to do it, and we will do it,” Holness said. “We have to account for every Jamaican who has lost their life because we have to account to their families as well, and we have to get a full understanding of the impact of the disaster.”

However, it’s not clear how Holness will deliver on that promise if the names aren’t made public, and how the public will know for sure that he has delivered on his pledge.

TVJ News, for example, reported on Nov. 26 that it had tried unsuccessfully to confirm whether hurricane victim Basil Clarke’s body, which was exhumed that day, had been included in the official death count, since his family had reported his death to the police before burying him in their backyard. The police had reportedly been unable to handle the body themselves in the early days after the storm.

At a Nov. 19 press conference —in Holness’ presence — 18º North asked ODPEM for a list of names of those who died so the press could crosscheck who is on the list compared to the numbers being reported and so that family members could determine if their loved ones were on it. However, Commander Gayle declined.

Gayle merely answered, “We have it, we have cross-referenced it through our police investigations and so on, so we’re fully confident in those matters. They also investigated. But we’ll leave those matters in terms of putting the names out there for the families to treat with.” What exactly the families are supposed to do isn’t clear. Prime Minister Holness, who was sitting right in front of him at the time, didn’t object to what Gayle said.

Names Released In Other National Tragedies

While 18º North couldn’t find a list of names of victims from other hurricanes in Jamaica, there are instances of names recorded from other national tragedies.

For example, within days of the Kendal train crash that killed nearly 200 people on Sept. 1, 1957 —before Independence from Britain in 1962 —the names of a few of the victims, their ages and addresses were published in The Daily Gleaner, based on a clipping included in a collective of the crash by the National Library of Jamaica. Many decades later in September 2025, the government unveiled a monument bearing 177 of the names.

A memorial erected in downtown, Kingston also bears the names and ages of more than 30 lives lost in two separate gun battles between the security forces and alleged gunmen in May 1997 and July 2001.

And later, from the 2010 operation by the security forces in West Kingston in the hunt for drug lord Christopher “Dudus” Coke who was wanted in the United States, there was also a list with the identities, ages, occupations and addresses of the 76 people killed. That list was ultimately used by 18º North in a 2015 documentary to prove that there were more victims than the official count.

Why is Accuracy of the Death Toll Important?

An accurate account of how many people were killed, how they died and where they died isn’t just important for the record, given the history-making nature of Melissa, but it also helps reveal actions that can be improved upon so there can be better disaster planning in the future to keep people safe.

For instance, a NBC News examination of death records obtained from local and state authorities after Hurricane Ian, which made landfall in Florida on September 28, 2022 and became one of the deadliest to hit the U.S. in 20 years, revealed that the highest number of deaths in that state — 61 of the at least 148 people that perished — were from Lee County, which took a day longer than neighboring counties to issue a mandatory evacuation order.

In addition, most of those who died were over age 65, which could signal a need for more to be done to help the elderly in the future.

A database published by the Fort Myers-based News-Press of about 100 of Ian’s victims in Florida lists county; date of death or when the body was discovered; age; probable cause of death and manner of death; and a button where you can click for more details like gender and the specifics of how the person died. Of note, the database doesn’t list names.

However, within three weeks after the hurricane, News-Press published an article with some obituaries on its website with pictures, names, ages and the circumstances of how they died from the storm, citing in some cases, an office of the medical examiner as the source.

Ethical and Legal Considerations in Releasing Names

Joel Reidenberg, who teaches law at Fordham University in New York and has examined the issue of releasing the names of those missing or unaccounted for in natural disasters told KUOW public radio in Seattle in 2014 that the practice of reporting names of the missing after disasters is ad hoc. As to whether to list names, he said some of the considerations are: What’s the benefit to the victim? What are the potential risks of publicly releasing the name of the individual thought to be missing at that time, like a battered spouse who has a protection order against an abusive partner? What’s the risk that the names on the list may cause further confusion and distress to the families unnecessarily? Reidenberg also advised in a report he co-authored that entities consider local laws in their jurisdiction.

In Jamaica, there’s an inherent right to privacy embedded in the Constitution and the Data Protection Act (DPA), which passed in 2020.

However, according to two Jamaican data protection experts, who didn’t want to be named, in the case of natural disasters and life-or-death situations where the sharing of information may be important to try and save them, the DPA doesn’t prohibit personal data, including names of missing persons, from being made public.

Under the law, the experts say the information of deceased persons may also be shared in matters of a public nature in the public interest like Hurricane Melissa given the scale of the disaster and its importance to the general public and the functions for entities like ODPEM to identify and analyze the disaster.

One of them cautioned, however, that the government should avoid publishing more information than needed based on principles in the DPA like data minimization; accuracy; and making sure that the manner of disclosure doesn’t cause unnecessary harm or distress. So, names and general demographic descriptors might be acceptable while cause of death requires more thought because some details might reveal or imply sensitive health information.

On causes of death, ODPEM has not defined what’s considered a hurricane death. The Jamaican state entity has also not said whether it has been or will start including indirect deaths — which are those not directly related to the storm but would otherwise not have happened if not for the storm.

Should the 10 persons that have died as of Nov. 26 from an outbreak of leptospirosis since Melissa, for instance, be added to the death count?

Until officials disclose the names of Hurricane Melissa’s victims or justify their refusal for providing more identifying information, families like Clarke’s in Westmoreland have no way of knowing whether their grief was ever formally acknowledged, which can breed hurt and suspicion. And when a prime minister can publicly claim concern about the death toll even as his government blocks the details that can help confirm it, suspicion may be less about cynicism to the reasonable person and more about common sense.

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A New Boost For Transparency, But More Clarity Still Needed on Jamaica’s Hurricane Funding

Opinion: As Hurricane Melissa Fast-Tracks Jamaica’s Aid and Procurement Processes, It Should Speed Up Transparency and Oversight Too.

This follows a Nov. 11 op-ed published by 18° North that had called for emergency legislation to loosen disclosure restrictions in the Access to Information Act (ATI Act) and the Integrity Commission Act (IC Act) so that information regarding hurricane aid could flow more freely.

While the request was largely dismissed at a press briefing that same day by Information Minister Dana Morris Dixon, who said the focus now is on getting food and shelter to people, not legislative changes, another arm of government may be helping facilitate the release of information in a different way.

On Nov. 13, the Office of Public Procurement Policy (OPPP) within the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service instructed all public entities to upload all notices of emergency contracts to its Government of Jamaica Electronic Procurement (GOJEP) portal within 30 days of a contract award.

Guidance Note 2 2025 Procurement In Situations Of Emergency Or Extreme Urgency

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This is significant because emergency procurement will likely dominate early Hurricane Melissa spending, so this requirement could provide the first real window into how relief money is being disbursed via contracts. Updates to the only other similar centralized database kept by the Integrity Commission called the Quarterly Contract Awards (QCA) database is no longer being made public because of a clause in the law that has yet to be rectified by parliament.

The Nov. 13 guidance from the OPPP is grounded in law, so disclosure isn’t discretionary.

An amendment earlier this year to the Public Procurement Act, 2015 mandates that a notice of all emergency contracts be given by procuring entities “within one month after the emergency contract was awarded, in the manner specified in guidelines issued by the Office.” It just so happens that those guidelines are now being shared with public entities.

In addition to the mandatory publication via GOJEP, public bodies may also publish notices of emergency contracts on their own websites. So in theory, the public should soon be able to see a description of what’s being procured, contractors, dollar amounts, justifications and timelines for hurricane-related work.

Will There Be Compliance?

But whether this level of disclosure will take place in practice is another story.

That’s because, though GOJEP has been up since 2022 for contracts using other procurement methods like single source, restricted bidding, national and international competitive tendering, the site has been underused.

Despite penalties for noncompliance—including fines or imprisonment — only 8,882 contract notices have been posted since inception, which is an average of 2,220 each year. Contrast that with the un-updated version of the Integrity Commission’s QCA database, and it has 179,461 contracts reported between 2006 and 2020, an average of 11,964 annually. (Updates to the QCA database stopped being shared with the public in 2020 though government entities are still required to submit details of contracts they award for the IC’s internal use.)

Transparency Extends Beyond Procurement

Transparency also extends beyond procurement. It’s also about what’s coming in and going out to various public entities before any procurement occurs.

At a Nov. 13 press briefing, it was revealed that over J$540 million (US$3.375 million) had been deposited in the accounts of Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) through the government’s official relief platform.

There was also US$1.13 million and J$55.85 million received in credit card donations.

Previously, the public was also told about payouts of US$150 million (J$24 billion) from the World Bank-issued catastrophe bond and US$91.9 million (J$14.7 billion) from the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF), mechanisms that were put in place prior to Melissa as part of Jamaica's disaster financing.

Assuming these are all separate amounts, that’s J$39.5 billion or US$246.7 million when summed together, only 4% of the estimated US$6 billion in estimated damage on the low end. But the government hasn’t explained whether these funds are overlapping, how it plans to make up the shortfall, where the disaster financing tranches are being held, and which ministries or entities will ultimately have control.

Press briefings have been helpful but sometimes provide incomplete information. For example, to a request to know the allocations that have been made to each ministry for Hurricane Melissa expenses, which Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness had said was to have been discussed at a Nov. 6 Cabinet meeting, Morris Dixon on Nov. 11 said what was discussed were indicative amounts of damage by ministry and that “there’s been no full allocations as yet.” And yet, two days later at the Nov. 13 press briefing, other ministers announced Cabinet-approved spending on roads and water trucking by municipalities. One of them giving the preliminary aggregate amount for roads of J$5 billion. Even Morris Dixon, herself, wearing her other hat of Minister of Education that day, announced grants of J$300,000 to J$1 million approved by Cabinet to affected schools for cleanup, but didn’t give the total amount allocated.

There’s no point in 18° North asking the Cabinet under the ATI Act for all the allocations there have been so far because Cabinet documents are exempt, so the public has to just wait for disclosure.

In a vlog post, journalist and talk show host Dionne Jackson Miller criticized the government for treating transparency as secondary to relief arguing that “it has to go hand in hand with oversight and accountability.” She said to 18° North’s question that even if the government doesn’t want to get bogged down with legislative amendments right now, a better response from Morris Dixon would have been “We won’t need those kinds of emergency changes anyway because the government is going to be pushing out all the information we need in the interest of transparency so we can see what is really going on.”

While the Auditor General’s Department announced recently that it will be doing real-time auditing of the relief funds, there’s no better audit than the watchful eyes of the public who is able to immediately tell whether work was done and whether value for money was achieved — and of course whether there was fairness in how the contracts were awarded.

Clarity is also needed from the Minister of Finance Fayval Williams about what has been collected and disbursed so far and how monies will flow and from where.

Before the hurricane, in June, Williams had revealed that Jamaica had J$130.6 billion (US$816.3 million) in disaster financing coverage but only itemized J$96.5 billion (US$603.1 million) of that amount when she spoke after the hurricane on Oct. 30, so she still needs to explain that substantial gap (she did speak about contingent loans from international partners but didn’t itemize those amounts).

The public also has no clarity on how much of the US$6 - US$8 billion estimated national damage is insured, what portion the government will need to finance directly and the extent to which Jamaica will have to draw on multilateral loans — including a US$285 million (J$45.6 billion) IDB contingent credit facility, which Williams had revealed was part of the country’s pre-planned disaster financing coverage. With the IMF recently confirming that Kingston has not sought its support, it remains unclear what the government’s financing strategy will be or how new borrowing would affect Jamaica’s debt trajectory.

The absence of comprehensive detailed information on how much money has been received, where it sits, how it has been spent so far and will be spent in the future, and the government’s broader plan for recovery risks eroding public trust, and investor and donor confidence.

Transparency may sound like a distraction from the emergency, but with some Jamaicans already complaining about unfairness of aid distribution, allegations of delayed relief along party lines and even the possible temptation of corruption whether now or down the road, transparency is perhaps one of the most effective ways in tamping down on any false narratives and ensuring that the government’s response is credible and accountable, and most importantly, that it is fairly reaching all persons that were affected by Hurricane Melissa.

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Editor’s Notes:

Exchange rate used is US$1:J$160.

Editing help from ChatGPT.

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Opinion: As Hurricane Melissa Fast-Tracks Jamaica’s Aid and Procurement Processes, It Should Speed Up Transparency and Oversight Too.

A ‘Serious Regression’ In Jamaica’s Fight Against Corruption

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Yesterday, the United States committed another US$10 million in aid to help Jamaica recover from Hurricane Melissa, bringing its total contribution to US$22 million.

It seems like the largest single donation to Jamaica by an individual country so far, but there’s no way for the public to know for sure.

This shouldn’t be the case.

There should be a live tally of all donations, and the public should immediately be able to know how much has come in and, and within three months at least, where it’s going.

Instead, at a Nov. 6 press briefing, Information Minister Dana Morris Dixon said the “huge spreadsheet of everything that comes in” at the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) will be given “at the appropriate time” as new head, Commander Alvin Gayle, gets more integrated into ODPEM.

Speaking at the same press briefing, Gayle said a subcommittee would provide oversight to the monies coming in and that, “somewhere down the road those figures will become public.”

Video: Information Minister Sen. Dana Morris Dixon and ODPEM Head Commander Alvin Gayle answer press questions on Nov. 6

When exactly is “the appropriate time” if not now? When exactly is “somewhere down the road?”

The Jamaican government doesn’t exactly have the best track record of delivering full information, much less in a timely manner. So, despite these assurances, there should still be cause for concern.

If the government was so invested in transparency and accountability, the government’s donation site, SupportJamaica.gov.jm, would have been built with a publicly-available tracker of amounts raised from the outset. Instead, I don’t see any tracker there, and the public is left to get verbal updates from Morris Dixon every couple of days on how much money has been raised from that portal.

Adding to the concern is that long before now — in 2020 — the Integrity Commission stopped releasing to the public its database that tracks government contracts, citing limitations in the Integrity Commission Act. Despite bringing the issue to the parliament, lawmakers have dragged their feet to rectify those concerns.

Over the years, the government has also hidden behind various clauses of the Access to Information Act to exempt basic information.

One of its favorites is that the information is commercially sensitive.

Earlier this year, an ATI request to the state’s National Water Commission (NWC) for a copy of the contract for the US$92 million (J$14.75 billion) Rio Cobre Water Treatment Plant project led by French construction firm Vinci and its local partners was largely redacted when sent after several months of the initial request being made, instead of within the initial mandated period of 30 days.

And when 18º North followed up in August asking specifically for some of the public-interest information that had been redacted like: 1. Date of contract signing. 2. Names and signatures of persons that signed the contract and their entity affiliations. 3. The value of the contract. 4. The scope of work to be completed and dates when work would start and end. 5. Initial financing arrangements that were in place for the project—source of financing and interest rates and the price the NWC would pay for this water, the NWC has not responded to the request.

Getting information from the Ministry of Health and Wellness during the Covid-19 pandemic was just as frustrating.

18º North had requested copies of agreements that existed between the Government of Jamaica and international donors of Covid-19 vaccines and was told by the Ministry of Health that a legal review was being sought because section 14 of the ATI Act exempts documents that “contain information communicated in confidence to the Government by or on behalf of a foreign government or by an international organization.” (I can’t find where that legal opinion ever came into my inbox.)

What are the chances that when journalists submit ATI requests for information on Hurricane Melissa aid —be it from the U.S. or other countries like Spain, Venezuela, China or El Salvador — that the same Section 14 of the ATI Act will be invoked?

At the Nov. 6 press briefing, Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness said that there would have been a Cabinet meeting that same day to discuss the allocation of expenditures and that, “[Health] Minister Tufton is quick off the bat. He has brought a quite hefty bill.” Morris Dixon, who is also the Minister of Education, said under her breath, “I have mine too.”

So, what has been the allocation to each ministry? The public, at another press conference scheduled for this morning at 10 a.m., should be able to know.

In the same way that the prime minister had invoked sections of the Disaster Risk Management Act before and after the storm, which allows for the speedy deployment of resources to protect life and property, the rules should also be relaxed under the ATI Act so that journalists and members of the public can get information in full and in less than 30 days without these exemption clauses being invoked so we can see how money is flowing in and out.

As a matter of routine, money flowing out via contracts should also be mandatorily required by emergency legislation to report spending of all this disaster relief money to the public by each government entity at least on a quarterly basis. The Integrity Commission should also be mandated under emergency legislation to release a comprehensive report of all these contracts listing contractor, size and date of award, work done and procurement methodology, also on a quarterly basis.

While the Auditor General’s Department announced yesterday that it will be doing real-time auditing of the relief funds, there’s no better audit than the watchful eyes of the public who is able to immediately tell whether work was done and whether value for money was achieved — and of course whether there is fairness in how the contracts are being awarded.

Not Just Money That Needs Monitoring, But Also Aid.

And it’s not just money coming in that needs real-time monitoring.

There also needs to be more transparency on where humanitarian aid is being deployed.

Information should be provided on a daily real-time basis — What was dropped? Where? How many people or families benefited, and how long is the aid expected to last?

This will allow us, as media and members of the public, to understand which communities have yet to be reached, and maybe how we can individually help the ones that are not being reached by government aid.

At the Nov. 6 press briefing, TVJ’s Kelesha Williams asked if there was a schedule of the aid that can be published and was told by Gayle, that there is an internal one but because the situation remains “dynamic” on the ground, even in terms of landing sites, ODPEM would wait until the situation becomes more “benign” before making the daily schedule public. This shouldn’t be the case.

RJR’s Dionne Jackson Miller also asked for a list of marooned communities, since, at its peak, the public was told there were more than 30 communities cut off as a result of flooding, landslides, collapsed bridges or disintegrated roads.

To that, Gayle said the list would be made public “shortly” while assuring that aid had been dropped to more than 20 of the communities and the government was working to reduce the number of marooned communities, which he said last week was 27.

Jackson Miller also asked about an independent oversight committee to monitor the spending of aid. To that, Morris Dixon said the governance framework was still being discussed and we would hear more on that. When?

In a Nov. 2 letter, the presidents of the various private sector bodies in Jamaica had called for an oversight and recovery committee made up of not just representatives of government and the opposition, but also members of the private sector and civil society. At the end of the day, in addition to the millions of U.S. dollars and aid coming in from countries and organizations around the world, US$150 million (J$24 billion) will flow to Jamaica from the World Bank-issued catastrophe bond, and US$91.9 million (J$14.8 billion) from CCRIF, which for us, is significant.

As social enterprise specialist, Yaneek Page, posted on X on Nov. 7, “History has taught us that once aid comes, the whispers begin,” and Jamaica can’t afford to follow the path of Haiti or Puerto Rico where the aid came but the systems failed and communities were overlooked.

She posted, “We must show our people, donors, and the world, a gold standard in accountability and reporting. Transparent. Non-partisan. Auditable. Immediate.”

I second her sentiments. I would also add more specificity being made available quickly to the public to guide the decision-making around humanitarian relief.

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Editor’s Note:
This version corrects the conversion of the US$91.9 million from CCRIF to reflect J$14.8 billion. It had previously stated US$14.8 billion, which was a typographical error.

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A Year On, Millions of Jamaican Dollars from Global Covid-19 Telethon Sit Idle

Video: Dr. Christopher Tufton featured in one of the Jamaica Moves videos.

The Oct. 7 Integrity Commission (IC) report found that Health Minister Dr. Christopher Tufton “could reasonably be considered to have indirectly influenced” the engagement of Market Me Consulting Limited by his ministry—a company co-owned by his friend, Lyndsey McDonnough, and later awarded almost $80 million (US$563,819) in no-bid contracts from the health ministry and one of its agencies.

Despite that finding, the IC stopped short of recommending prosecution, instead referring the matter to the Speaker of the House—a move typically reserved for breaches of conduct, not procurement law.

Tufton admitted having been McDonnough’s friend since 2011-- before Market Me was incorporated in 2013 and before he became Minister of Health and Wellness in March 2016.

And yet, evidence submitted to the IC by the ministry’s then-Permanent Secretary Dr. Kevin Harvey and its then-Manager Public Relations and Communications Stephanie Shaw Smith showed it was:

• Tufton who introduced Market Me to the ministry upon taking office.

• Tufton who asked that Market Me be involved in all PR activities related to his role before the ministry had ever contracted with the company.

• And Tufton who pushed for the company to present its proposal for its physical activity program, Jamaica Moves, though another firm, OGM Integrated Communications, already had a contract for a similar program, Make It Count.

Director of Investigation (DI) Kevon Stephenson concluded that the rules required Tufton to have formally declared a conflict of interest, but he didn’t. And still, the DI didn’t recommend a criminal sanction.

While the IC has since explained why the DI declined to do so, based on an analysis by 18º North, the reason still seems inadequate for a public wanting to know where’s the accountability in Jamaica’s governance system?

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Procurement Rules on Conflict of Interest

At the time of Market Me’s first Jamaica Moves no-bid contract in 2017, valued at $15.8 million (US$113,444), the governing rules were The Contractor General Act – Public Sector Procurement Regulations, 2008, and the Government of Jamaica Handbook of Public Sector Procurement Procedures (Revised 2014).

Regulation 36(1) of the 2008 legislation required any public officer, even if indirectly involved in procurement, like preparation of bidding documents or evaluation, to declare any conflict of interest and refrain from being involved in decision-making or implementation of the contract where such a relationship exists.

Section 4.2.1 of the GOJ Handbook states a conflict of interest will arise when the individual has a direct or indirect relationship with a contractor, which may affect or might reasonably be deemed by others, to affect impartiality on any matter related to his/her duties.

And yet, despite the fact that it was his friend’s business, Tufton was arguably involved in implementation since he was the face of Jamaica Moves, appearing widely in the media. He also arguably participated in the preparation part of the procurement process, since, according to the IC report, he was “integrally involved” in a number of meetings to discuss Jamaica Moves, even at its proposal stage.

Shaw Smith told the DI about one such meeting over a weekend at Market Me’s office with Tufton and McDonnough, where in addition to Jamaica Moves, they also discussed OGM’s Make It Count. Another meeting, which Tufton confirmed attending, was Market Me’s July 2016 presentation to the ministry.

Former PS Harvey told investigators that before Market Me’s presentation on Jamaica Moves, *OGM Integrated had already made its pitch for a similar healthy lifestyle program at one of Tufton’s previous senior management briefings.

He recalled how after Market Me’s presentation, “the HMH [Honourable Minister of Health] asked that myself and the technical team responsible meet with Market Me to further discuss the proposal.”

Harvey also confirmed a third meeting where the ministry outlined deficiencies of Market Me’s proposal and advised the company to submit a detailed written one if it intended to submit an unsolicited proposal.

The health ministry would indeed go on to submit an unsolicited proposal from Market Me to the National Contracts Commission (NCC), which approved direct contracting in December 2016, allowing the ministry to bypass the competitive process.

The Unsolicited Proposal That Really Wasn’t Unsolicited

But the DI, who is an attorney, found that the circumstances under which the ministry accepted Market Me’s unsolicited proposal weren’t financially prudent and weren’t justified since OGM had already been engaged for a similar campaign, and unsolicited proposals are supposed to be unique and not resemble a recent or pending competitive tender. Stephenson also noted that unsolicited proposals must be submitted without influence from the procuring entity, and ministry officials, at Tufton’s prompting, had given Market Me feedback on its proposal’s deficiencies before the firm was allowed to resubmit it, which provided an “unfair advantage” to Market Me.

As a result, the DI ruled that the use of the unsolicited proposal method breached Section 1.2 of the GOJ Handbook and the opportunity should have gone to competitive tendering. However, he didn’t recommend prosecution of the ministry or NCC officials and didn’t explain why he declined to do so.

The Question of Accountability

Procurement consultant Ricardo Bailey at DRB Group told 18º North it was the permanent secretary’s duty to have advised the minister on what was permissible. But PS Harvey left the ministry in July 2016, about a year before the contract was eventually signed in June 2017, and the report didn’t clarify whether his immediate successor, Elaine Foster-Allen, knew of Harvey’s prior missteps before submitting Market Me’s unsolicited proposal to the NCC.

Asked if he influenced Market Me’s proposal, Tufton told investigators: “I gave no instructions to anyone to award the contract to Market Me.” However, he said, “Given the policy direction that I wish to embark upon it would be expected that contracts awarded by the Ministry to execute policy on wellness and lifestyle matters such as Jamaica Moves project would be in harmony with policy objectives articulated by me as Minister.”

With that, Stephenson concluded that while there was no evidence Tufton directly instructed anyone, he “gave directives” to his permanent secretary that could, “to the mind of the reasonable and detached observer, be construed as an indirect instruction to engage the entity by way of contract(s).”

And though finding that Tufton’s actions gave rise to, “at its lowest, a perceived conflict of interest,” where, in his public function, he advanced a private interest which resulted in a monetary benefit to his friend’s business that contravened “principles” of transparency and good governance, Stephenson stopped short of saying that his actions violated the law.

Why the IC Didn’t Refer Tufton for Prosecution

When asked by email why the DI didn’t make a criminal referral, the IC responded that “a referral for prosecutorial consideration would not have been appropriate” because the evidence was “insufficient to prove some of the elements of the potential offenses to the required standard (beyond reasonable doubt).”

It also cited as a “significant hurdle” the definition of “personal relationship” under Regulation 36(5) of the 2008 Regulations which is “consanguinity or affinity up to the third civil degree,” meaning relations by blood or marriage.

It’s not fully clear why the IC felt the definition of “personal relationship” mattered, but after Regulation 36(1) gives the circumstances where conflicts of interest must be declared, subparagraph (2) states: Every personal relationship shall be disclosed in writing or, if in a meeting orally and then minuted...

Even though Tufton admitted to the DI having “a personal relationship/friendship” with Ms. McDonnough, Stephenson appears to have concluded that their connection didn’t meet the legal threshold.

A Different Standard?

That reasoning, however, seems inconsistent with an IC probe released in 2023 where Stephenson referred Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness for prosecution under the same 2008 Regulations after finding he “may have influenced” contracts for works in his constituency in 2007 and 2009 to Westcon Construction, linked to his business associate Robert Garvin. There was no indication Holness and Garvin were related by blood or marriage, yet Stephenson deemed their “personal affiliation” as enough for a referral.

In that case, after considering Regulation 36(1)(a) and 36(1)(b), which mandate declaration of “any” potential conflict of interest or “any” relationship with a bidder or supplier, the IC’s Director of Corruption Prosecution (DCP) declined to charge Holness —not because of the personal relationship definition in 36(5), but due to insufficient proof of procurement interference since the guidelines surrounding constituency contracts weren’t fully established at the time. Why the standard is different in the case of Tufton and McDonnough’s relationship has not been answered by the IC.

A Way Around "Personal Relationship”

Even if the “personal relationship” clause in Regulation 36(5) of the 2008 law was a hurdle, some legal minds consulted by 18º North agree that the DI could have relied on other provisions of that same law to recommend charges.

Regulation 7 required adherence to the GOJ Handbook—which the DI itself found was breached when the ministry improperly used the unsolicited proposal method to hire Market Me even though it had the blessing of the NCC. Regulations 35 and 38 dealt with confidentiality in procurement matters, yet Shaw Smith told investigators that she, Tufton and McDonnough discussed OGM’s Make It Count campaign at Market Me’s office—suggesting a breach. Regulation 36(3) stated point blank that a contractor with potential or actual conflict of interest is ineligible to submit a proposal, and Market Me, whose co-owner was Tufton’s friend, had not just submitted a proposal, but had also gotten almost $80 million worth of ministry contracts.

According to Regulation 40, the penalty for direct breaches of the Regulations —and also for aiding or abetting them — was a fine of up to $1,000 (US$7) and, or three months in prison. This raises a question of why the DI didn’t refer ministry officials for prosecution for having breached the law and then similarly recommend Tufton for having incited those breaches?

The DI might also have pursued violations under The Public Procurement Act, 2015, which, when it was effectuated on April 1, 2019, **repealed the 2008 Regulations and doesn’t contain that personal relationship clause. Section 42(1)(b) of that Act broadly requires procuring entities to exclude contractors with an unfair competitive advantage “or” conflict of interest but doesn’t specifically define those terms. Since the DI had found both a perceived conflict of interest and an unfair advantage in Market Me’s first no-bid Jamaica Moves contract, Stephenson could have argued that even one of those issues tainted some of Market Me’s later contracts between 2019 and 2021 that would have been governed by this newer legislation -- ultimately because of Tufton’s influence.

The penalty under Section 56(1)(a) for any person who unlawfully influences or attempts to influence an officer involved in the procurement process, even if indirectly, is up to $3 million (US$21,525) and, or three years in prison.

Instead, the only referral he made on those later contracts —a few of which were found to be in breach of the procurement rules because they exceeded the direct-contracting threshold —was to the permanent secretary for “appropriate action” and for a determination to be made as to whether there needed to be recovery of any loss.

What About Financial Benefit, Other Lines of Enquiry?

There was also the common law offense of misconduct in a public office available to the DI that he didn’t use. In the Westcon ruling, for instance, the DCP evaluated a recommendation to formally accuse Holness of that charge, but she ultimately declined to do so because of not enough evidence. In his investigation report, the DI had referred Holness for possible breaches of The Corruption (Prevention) Act, which the DCP didn’t address in her ruling. Why didn’t the DI similarly refer Tufton or at least explain why he didn’t do so, as he’s done in a previous report?

There’s also no sign the DI investigated whether Tufton got money from Market Me, even though the IC would have had access to his statutory declarations with information about his bank accounts, and the IC didn’t respond to 18º North when asked if that was done.

The enquiry may have been warranted because in an April 2024 Gleaner op-ed, Tufton appeared to claim partial credit for conceptualizing Jamaica Moves, contradicting both his and McDonnough’s statements to the DI that the program was Market Me’s idea. He wrote, “The concern and concept I was clear on. The name and branding were done through collaboration with one of the craziest (creative crazy) but brilliant creative thinkers I knew at the time. Jamaica Moves (JaMoves) was born.”

Was that brilliant, creative thinker McDonnough?

Tufton also wrote that “we creatively packaged selected corporate brands” to fund Jamaica Moves before government financial support. But who was “we” — Tufton and McDonnough, or Tufton and the ministry, which admitted in 2020 it launched the initiative in April 2017 with private sector funding before Market Me’s June 2017 contract? Who benefited from that funding and the “in excess of $75 million” (US$538,136) in private contributions that Market Me had said in 2020 supported the program?

Though the firm seemed to claim most of those funds went directly to suppliers, the IC should have verified and examined this if it found it had jurisdiction. Tufton did tell the DI, “I do not have a business relationship with Ms. McDonnough” aside from her firm’s ministry contracts and work done in his constituency “on a voluntary and professional basis.”

But why was the co-owner of a health ministry contractor providing voluntary work to the health minister’s constituency? When was that work provided, what was its value, and should it have been declared? The DI didn’t go into that. Parliamentarians are required to report on their statutory declarations to the Integrity Commission gifts they receive valued at over $100,000, but it’s not known if voluntary work provided to a parliamentarian’s constituency would fall into that category.

The DI also appears to have overlooked publicly available information.

For example, 18º North had published evidence in 2022 showing that Tufton had pushed for an agency of his ministry, the National Health Fund (NHF), to fund Jamaica Moves even though it was a ministry initiative. The evidence showed he had also attended the meeting of the NHF board where Jamaica Moves’ initial funding was approved, and he had also helped to oversee its implementation. Yet there’s no indication investigators used this material or questioned NHF board members or officials about Tufton’s involvement. Key witnesses also appear to have been missed like Permanent Secretary Foster-Allen, who came in 2016 immediately after Harvey, and the PS who followed her in 2017, Sancia Bennett-Templer.

Those interviews could have been useful because when the DI interviewed Permanent Secretary Dunstan Bryan, who came to the ministry in 2018 and who oversaw the $38.9 million (US$279,341) Jamaica Moves contract to Market Me in 2019, Bryan gave him a key detail to help him prove Tufton’s further involvement in the procurement process. “The Minister and I discussed the implementation of activities related to the Jamaica Moves Campaign,” he told the DI. He also stated “the issue of outstanding payments to Market Me was raised with me in January 2019” in response to a question about the minister’s involvement.

If Bryan was indeed referring to the minister, why was Tufton raising the issue of outstanding payments to Market Me if it was his friend’s firm?

Referral to the Speaker

Stephenson did refer the matter to the Speaker of the House, but he didn’t say what he hoped the referral would achieve.

Without specifically saying it, maybe he felt that Tufton had violated the principles of Ministry Paper No. 19/2002, Conduct of Ministers, which he cited in the body of the report, and which states that ministers must act solely in the public interest and declare private interests relating to their public duties.

Tufton, meanwhile, publicly framed the report as representing “vindication.” In an interview that aired on an Oct. 8 edition of TVJ’s All Angles, he noted that the IC had found “no evidence of pursuing the matter beyond having a discussion with the Speaker.” The Health Ministry also claimed the report found “no malfeasance.”

But Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal (JAMP) Executive Director Jeanette Calder, who appeared on the same program, disagreed, saying multiple procurement breaches occurred. “If you’re violating laws and regulations and the ministry doesn’t see that as a wrongdoing, the public has reason to be concerned,” she said. “And if the minister doesn’t see violations of public procurement laws that safeguard and protect our assets and funds as illegality then we really have to have a serious conversation about who the minister reports to.” (Calder has always maintained that parliamentarians report to taxpayers.)

The Larger Question of Accountability

The DI’s only potential referral for prosecution against ministry officials was their failure to submit certain Market Me contracts to the IC’s Quarterly Contract Awards database, a compilation of contracts issued by public bodies. But even that collapsed due to “evidentiary gaps,” including the absence of a key requisition once issued by the IC’s predecessor, Office of the Contractor General, requiring the submission of details of contracts.

That this was his strongest prosecutable point—and still fell apart—doesn’t feel like enough for an entity whose job it is to pursue accountability.

Given the weight these reports carry in shaping conduct, the DI should still clarify in more detail, even now, why no charges were recommended and how procurement accountability laws can be strengthened, like he’s done in a previous report. He should perhaps also be brought before the parliament’s Integrity Commission Oversight Committee to explain his reasoning.

Without clearer explanations and consistency, such findings risk normalizing political influence as “policy direction.”

After five years of investigation, the public deserved evidence of a more exhaustive probe and an indication that the DI had tested every legal avenue, even if the DCP later declined to prosecute. Instead, the report reflects an inadequate and incomplete effort and raises questions not just about the minister’s actions but also about the IC’s resolve to fight corruption.

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Editor’s Notes:
This story has been updated to add the paragraph about gift declarations and the question of why the minister was asking about outstanding payments to Market Me.

Editing help from ChatGPT.

Exchange rate used is J$1:US$139.37, the average of the average sell rates for the years over which the contracts were awarded in 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2021, as displayed by the Bank of Jamaica.

*Harvey stated OCG communications in his actual writing, but the IC used OGM Integrated Communications in its conclusions.

**The IC maintains that the 2008 Regulations were repealed on February 22, 2018 — before The Public Procurement Act, 2015 came into force on April 1, 2019 — by virtue of the Integrity Commission Act being effectuated. It says when the Integrity Commission Act came into force, it repealed the Contractor General Act, which formed the lawful basis of the 2008 Regulations, and so the Regulations became defunct. However, it didn’t answer a subsequent question about what legislation, then, governed public procurement between February 2018 and March 2019. The Ministry of Finance, which provides guidance on procurement for all public bodies, maintains that the 2008 Regulations governed public procurement up to April 1, 2019, but hasn’t yet rebutted the IC’s point, even though it was asked about it.

Disclaimer: I had applied to the job of Manager, Contracts, Procurement & Corruption Investigations at the Integrity Commission in May 2025, and updated my application in June, but didn’t get the job. The position reports to the DI.

This was originally a paid subscriber post before it was made free. If you’ve read this full post, you’ll probably enjoy the benefits of being a paid subscriber, which allow you to get full access to these kinds of articles FIRST and to our FULL archive of stories. And you’re in luck. 18 Degrees North Investigations is having a 50% off sale this week for Black Friday. That’s 50% off the going rate — not just for one year but each time you renew for the life of your subscription. You can’t beat that! Become a paid subscriber today!

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The release of the ministry’s reaction to the un-tabled report raises a question about whether it had received a copy of the investigation prior to it being made public, and how, if yes?

Typically, the report is tabled before the reaction is received, and the Integrity Commission hasn’t yet answered an email as to whether it gave the Health Ministry an advance copy. A call was also not answered.

Timeline

The Integrity Commission had issued a release on Friday, September 26 announcing that it had submitted four investigation reports and three indicative rulings to Parliament for tabling.

This morning, Nationwide News Network (NNN) reported that the subject of one of the un-tabled IC reports was the issue of the contracts issued to Market Me and stated it would be tabled in the Parliament later this afternoon.

The time stamp of the email with the ministry’s reaction to the report was 3:04 p.m. and its release specifically started, “The Ministry takes note of the report from the Integrity Commission (IC) tabled in Parliament earlier today (October 7, 2025) as the culmination of its investigations.”

But when 18º North asked the parliament for the report which had been reportedly “tabled,” the public relations officer Shernette Johnson responded at 3:31 p.m., “The report has not yet been tabled. Once it is tabled, it will be sent out.”

When 18º North asked the Ministry of Health’s representative Petre Williams-Raynor at 3:38 p.m. whether and how the ministry was able to issue a reaction prior to the report being tabled, she asked me to hold off on reporting the ministry’s reaction.

When I said “No, I can’t do that,” she gasped, “Oh My God!”

I asked whether the ministry got the report from the Integrity Commission before it was tabled or from the parliament and she responded, “I can’t comment on that.”

The parliament subsequently issued an email with the tabled documents at 3:50 p.m.

Earlier in the day, the Opposition People’s National Party had issued a release expressing concern about continued leaks to Nationwide News Network (NNN) prior to reports from the IC being officially tabled in Parliament.

The release stated, “Under the Integrity Commission Act, reports are required to be first submitted to Parliament and formally tabled before they are made public. The recurring disclosure of their contents beforehand undermines the authority of Parliament, erodes public confidence in the integrity of the process, and suggests that there is a serious breakdown in the official chain of custody.”

When told about the Ministry of Health's release of its reaction before the report was tabled, Shadow Minister of Information Nekeisha Burchell, responded at 4:50 p.m. saying, “These actions are not merely improper, they are a direct affront to the authority of Parliament and to the laws that govern how official information is to be handled…It is inconceivable that a ministry could respond to a report it had no lawful access to.”

She called for an investigation, “Whether through the Speaker of the House, the Cabinet Secretary, or law enforcement, this matter must be investigated swiftly, and those responsible must be sanctioned. If breaches of this magnitude go unpunished, Parliament itself will lose credibility as the guardian of accountability in our democracy.”

18º North will now go through the IC report and report back. Meantime, here is the release with the contents of the Ministry of Health’s reaction to the IC’s report:

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