There was a 6.7 per cent reduction in the number of complaints received about public health facilities in the first quarter of the current financial year, according to the Ministry of Health and Wellness’ Complaints Management System (CMS).

During a recent quarterly press briefing, Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton indicated that comparative to the first quarter of the last financial year, the 225 complaints/cases processed by the CMS this year represents 0.003 per cent of the total patients served by public health facilities.

“This means that one patient reported a complaint for every 3,111 patients that are served during that period,” the minister explained.

Furthermore, Tufton disclosed that 80 per cent of the complaints are attributable to incidents occurring at hospitals, 10 per cent at health centres, and about 10 per cent for private healthcare facilities. He listed the top-five facilities for which complaints are received: Kingston Public Hospital, Spanish Town Hospital, St. Ann’s Bay Hospital, Princess Margaret Hospital and Mandeville Regional Hospital, which, collectively, contributed to 61 per cent of the total cases handled in quarter one.

“The Kingston Public Hospital had 34 complaints, patients seen during that quarter – 36,276; the Spanish Town Hospital, 25 complaints, patients seen – 23,567; St. Ann’s Bay, 22 complaints – 21,640 patients seen; Princess Margaret, 17 complaints – 10,707 patients seen; and Mandeville Regional, 14 complaints – 21,181 patients seen,” the health minister outlined.

Most cases came from facilities within the Southeast Regional Health Authority (SERHA), with a total of 106 cases representing 47 per cent, the minister said. Of the 225 cases handled, 26 were new complaints received during the reporting period, while 199 were previously reported.

“The latter represented a 12 per cent decrease in the cases brought forward from previous quarters before being closed, relative to quarter one. This signals some levels of improvement in terms of the closure rate of complaints that have been logged, but I do think that we need to work on that to try and bring closure in a faster way, and that’s something that we are working on,” Tufton said.

The CMS was implemented by the Ministry of Health and Wellness to yield feedback from clients about the service they experienced and how best it can be improved.