Exclusive Interview: Foreign CEO Pick Chosen To Reform UHWI Turned Down Job After Feeling Unsupported By Key Figures, Including Health Minister Tufton
SUBSCRIBER CONTENT
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.
