PERMANENT secretary in the Ministry of Health (MOH) Dr Jean Dixon says Jamaica will continue to lag behind in achieving first-world status if access to public health care is not improved.

Dixon, speaking at Friday's first training session for participants in the health ministry's restructuring programme, said Jamaica -- like the rest of the world -- was experiencing challenging financial situations, which could impact negatively 'on health outcomes, health spending and health seeking behaviours'.

However, she said the country must remain committed to its international obligations such as the Millennium Development Goals, which are critical to achieving Vision 2030.

"Jamaica will not successfully meet its international obligations, achieve first-world status and improve our ranking on the Human Development Index and the Human Poverty Index without efficient, effective and responsive health system and access to quality health care," Dixon said.

Dixon was addressing members of the transformation teams who were participating in the workshop to build the capacities of persons within the MOH agencies to better manage the change process.

According to Dixon, the programme -- which is in keeping with Government's plan to restructure the public sector -- is intended to achieve cost efficiency, reduce duplication of functions, the size of the public health sector, bureaucracy and to improve service delivery.

The exercise will include outsourcing of certain functions and the integration of others into existing programmes or entities, as well as mergers.

"The restructuring exercise presents us with the opportunities to critically look at the way we organise our business, how we deliver services and the capacity of our system and our human resources. It is an opportunity to do better and to reposition the health sector to ensure national development," she said.

Meanwhile, Victor Brown, business process re-engineering specialist in the Office of the Prime Minister, said that factors such as efficiency, cost effectiveness and responsiveness will be very important in streamlining the programme.

"We have to be client-oriented, taxpayers pay for a service and we are here to deliver a service. We have to change our attitudes toward service delivery," he said. "We also have to look where we can use technology to make things happen faster, where we can link up with other ministries so that the departments can get the information to the front line so that the clients sitting there can be in an out within a reasonable time."

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