JAMAICA | The Doctor They Tried to Silence: How UHWI’s Defamation Suit Against a Neurosurgeon Unravelled Into a Full-Blown Scandal

A lawsuit designed to shut down a critic instead blew open a story of procurement irregularities, corporate silence, and a doctors’ revolt at Jamaica’s premier public hospital — built on the groundbreaking investigation by Zahra Burton of 18° North.

KINGSTON, Jamaica, April 25, 2026 - There is a peculiar kind of institutional arrogance that moves institutions to sue the people calling them corrupt — not to vindicate truth, but to silence inconvenience.

At the University Hospital of the West Indies, that arrogance may have set in motion one of the most damaging institutional scandals Jamaica has seen in years.

That is the core revelation embedded in an investigation by Zahra Burton, published in 18° North — the kind of painstaking, document-driven journalism that too rarely makes it to the public record.

Burton uncovered that UHWI and its chief doctor, Dr. Carl Bruce, filed a defamation lawsuit in September 2025 against neurosurgeon Dr. Roger Hunter, seeking damages, a public apology, and a court injunction silencing his social media commentary. What Hunter had said, apparently, was too close to the bone.

What Hunter Said — And What Followed

Beginning in April 2025, Hunter had taken to social media with a volley of accusations that were unsparing in their bluntness. He called Bruce a “bully” and an “unrepentant criminal.” He questioned his qualifications.

He alleged that Bruce had improperly benefited from contracts awarded to a medical supply company called Medical Technologies Limited (MEDITECH). He described the publicly funded hospital as “corrupt,” failing minimum standards, and mired in “serious systemic failures.”

UHWI, represented also by CEO Fitzgerald Mitchell, fired back legally. The lawsuit, filed in September 2025, was kept from public knowledge for months — details only surfacing after 18° North physically visited the Supreme Court to check.

That detail alone speaks volumes about the culture of opacity surrounding this institution.

Then the walls began to close in — not on Hunter, but on UHWI itself.

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

The Auditor General Steps In

On January 14, 2026, the Auditor General of Jamaica released a report focused on UHWI that flagged a sweeping array of procurement breaches. Almost immediately, CEO Fitzgerald Mitchell — one of the men who had moved to silence Hunter through litigation — proceeded on accrued leave amid a police fraud squad investigation. When Burton contacted him for comment on the report, his response was blunt: “no response.”

The procurement trail, as Burton’s investigation revealed, winds directly toward MEDITECH — the same company Hunter had been warning about. Genealogy records point to Bruce having a family connection to MEDITECH, which secured tens of millions of dollars in contracts from the hospital between 2008 and 2020, the overwhelming majority awarded with only a single bid received.

Three industry insiders, including MEDITECH’s former CEO, have alleged or hinted at a financial connection between Bruce and the company. Bruce has reportedly denied any ownership in MEDITECH. No findings of wrongdoing have been publicly announced, but the questions refuse to be buried.

Critically, Bruce served on UHWI’s procurement committee beginning in May 2014, as confirmed by the hospital’s own annual reports. Whether he ever declared a conflict of interest or recused himself from discussions involving MEDITECH remains publicly unanswered. Neither Bruce nor the hospital responded when asked.

A Hospital in Revolt

The crisis has not remained a paper trail. In January 2026, thirteen clinical heads — more than half of the full cohort of department heads at UHWI — co-signed a letter of no confidence in the hospital’s Senior Director of Clinical Services, widely understood to refer to Bruce.

The letter outlined complaints about management style, human resources practices, three allegations of verbal and physical abuse of staff, and what signatories described as institutional failure to properly investigate those complaints. Two court cases involving allegations of assault by the same official are currently before the courts.

By February 2026, the hospital’s acting CEO had sent a memo instructing staff to stop using the title “Medical Chief of Staff” altogether — a bureaucratic erasure that raises more questions than it answers.

The Accountability Asymmetry

Perhaps nothing in this saga is more instructive than the contrasting responses of Jamaica’s regulatory bodies. The Medical Council of Jamaica suspended Hunter for a year — in part because of the very voicenote that forms the basis of the defamation suit.

Bruce, facing a doctors’ revolt, two court cases, procurement questions, and a no-confidence letter from his own clinical staff, has yet to face any publicly announced action from the MCJ.

Hunter's Suspension Overturned

On April 15, The Medical Appeals Tribunal overturned Hunter's suspension.The three-member panel of Ambassador Kathryn Phipps, Dr Norda Clare-Pascoe, and Chantal Simpson ordered that Hunter’s practising certificate be restored.The medical council had accused Hunter of professional misconduct when it suspended his licence.

That asymmetry is the story. The man who shouted fire was penalised. The institution that may have been burning has, so far, faced no comparable accountability.

UHWI is not a private club. It is a publicly funded institution whose mandate is the health and wellbeing of the Jamaican people. Its procurement decisions, its governance, and the conduct of those who lead it are not private matters.

The Auditor General’s findings and the doctors’ no-confidence letter together constitute a cry that deserves not just investigation, but answers — delivered in public, on the record, without equivocation.

Zahra Burton’s investigation in 18° North has done the work that institutions prefer journalists not do. WiredJa commends that reporting and urges Jamaican authorities — the Ministry of Health, the Medical Council, and the Director of Public Prosecutions — to follow the trail Burton has laid bare, wherever it leads.

Hunter said justice is still alive in Jamaica. The country is watching to see if he is right.

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SOURCE INVESTIGATION | This article is based on original reporting by Zahra Burton. Read the full investigation at www.18degreesnorth.tv

WiredJa acknowledges and thanks Zahra Burton and 18° North for the foundational journalism that made this piece possible.