{{Short description|Jamaican politician and dental surgeon}} {{Update|date=September 2020}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = | honorific_prefix = The Honorable | office = Minister of Health | term_start = 2012 | term_end = 2015 | successor = Horace Dalley | predecessor = Rudyard Spencer | office1 = MP for Saint Thomas Eastern | term_start1 = 1993 | term_end1 = 2010 | birth_name = | honorific_suffix = CD MP | alma_mater = Ardenne High School | party = PNP }} '''Fenton Rudyard Ferguson''' CD is a Jamaican politician with the People's National Party. He began serving as Jamaica's Minister of labor and social security under Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller in 2012. He is a dental surgeon.<ref name="MOH">{{cite web |url=http://moh.gov.jm/ministry/profiles/491-hon-dr-fenton-ferguson-minister-of-health |title=Hon. Dr. Fenton Ferguson, Minister Of Health |publisher=Ministry of Health |location=Jamaica |accessdate=2013-04-11 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130114152257/http://moh.gov.jm/ministry/profiles/491-hon-dr-fenton-ferguson-minister-of-health |archivedate=2013-01-14 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jis.gov.jm/pdf/Members_of_Parliament.pdf|title=Members of Parliament|publisher=Jamaica Information Service|accessdate=2013-04-11|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130620015639/http://www.jis.gov.jm/pdf/Members_of_Parliament.pdf|archivedate=2013-06-20}}</ref> Fenton Ferguson was the MP for Saint Thomas Eastern. His opponent in 2016 was Mr. Delano Seiveright. Ferguson was moved to labor and social security after he remarked that babies who died as a result of the Klebsiella outbreak in 2015 at Victoria Jubilee Hospital are “not babies in the real sense” during his tenure as Minister of Health when many premature babies died from that bacteria.
==Career== Ferguson was elected to Parliament in 1993 from East St. Thomas, defeating Pearnel Charles of the Jamaica Labour Party and ending the JLP's 45-year hold on the constituency.<ref name="Gleaner20120109">{{cite news|url=http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120109/lead/lead91.html|first=Daraine|last=Luton|first2=Jodi-Ann|last2=Gilpin|title=Ferguson Claims East St Thomas, Still Strong PNP Seat|work=Jamaica Gleaner|date=2012-01-09|accessdate=2013-04-09}}</ref> He was elected a vice-president of the People's National Party in 2006 along with Angela Brown-Burke, Derrick Kellier, and Peter Phillips, beating out Sharon Hay-Webster, Louis Moyston and Kern Spencer.<ref name="Observer20060924">{{cite news|url=http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/113259_Brown-Burke-now-a-PNP-vice-president|first=Erica|last=Virtue|title=Brown-Burke now a PNP vice-president|work=The Jamaica Observer|date=2006-09-24|accessdate=2012-11-04}}</ref> He faced Charles' daughter Patrece Charles-Freeman in the 2011 election in the same East St. Thomas constituency, defeating her by 8,018 votes to 7,547. On September 3, 2020, parliamentary elections, Ferguson lost his seat to Dr. Michelle Charles, the daughter of Pearnel Charles Sr and brother of Pearnel Charles Jr. For the first time ever a brother and sister pair sat in Gordon House.<ref name="Gleaner20120109"/>
==Personal life== Ferguson attended Ardenne High School in Kingston before moving to the United States to attend Howard University, where he earned a B.Sc. in chemistry in 1974.<ref name="MOH"/> His sister, Dr. Millicent A. Comrie, specializes in obstetrics and gynecology at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY.
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
{{People's National Party}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferguson, Fenton}} Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:People's National Party (Jamaica) politicians Category:Ministers of health of Jamaica Category:Howard University alumni Category:People from Saint Thomas Parish, Jamaica Category:Commanders of the Order of Distinction