Holness should listen to his wife some more

THE accolades cannot be too many for parliamentarian Juliet Holness who has shown all her peers in the House of Representatives that serving the people of this country goes beyond party borders.

Whenever this woman of quality speaks, you are guaranteed that the utterances have substance and meaning. Many may be surprised, even shocked, that the wife of the prime minister, stifled by her appointment as Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, would have been so plain when she addressed the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee of Parliament last Tuesday and Wednesday.

Her criticism of the Health and Wellness Ministry’s handling of the vaccine management was valid, and on target. She did not say that her husband was playing around with keeping Dr Christopher Tufton as the ministry’s policy head, but she could have, for that’s where the bone of contention really lies.

Mrs Holness, who represents the people of St Andrew East Rural but who speaks also for all well-thinking individuals, deserves special commendation. She has taught those who should be teaching her, several lessons. This is a demonstration of the type of maturity our Parliament and politics need.

If I could afford it, I would buy her a bottle of her favourite drink, and raise an appropriate toast to one who has demonstrated that there should be no verbal obstacle when it comes to putting the interest of the people first. Are Juliet we looking at the second Holness woman prime minister not far from now?

Perhaps Mrs Holness can whisper in the prime minister’s ear that restructuring the Ministry of Health and Wellness from a human resource perspective is a must. Jamaica has been playing around with the vaccination programme, indeed the health-care system, for too long. Public relations cannot run accident & emergency rooms, operating theatres, nor can it prop up the ills of Jamaica’s health-care system.