THE health ministry will this weekend roll out an education campaign to sensitise the public about the abolition of hospital fees for children under age 18, which becomes effective next Monday.

Meantime, Health Minister Horace Dalley said yesterday that health officials across the island have implemented strategies to deal with the new regime.

He said, however, that staff complement would not be increased until it was deemed necessary by a task force established to monitor the implementation of the ‘no-fee’ regime for children.

Under the new regime, children under 18 will be exempt from paying fees for:

. medicines;

. diagnostic services (laboratory, x-rays);

. hospitalisation;

. surgeries; and

. registration.

This could represent a big relief for a number of parents who were unable to afford critical surgery for their children prior to the new regime.

Dalley said parents will be required to provide a form of identification, such as a birth certificate, passport or school identification, when their children are taken in for treatment.

But he said hospital staff would have to use their discretion if someone turns up without identification. He added that the Registrar General’s Department would be working with the health institutions to ensure that unregistered children are registered.

Dalley, in the meantime, appealed to parents to co-operate with health workers to ensure a smooth implementation of the new regime.

“When you go to the hospital on Monday morning with your child under 18. you are also going to be registered again just like a normal patient.” he said. “You will be processed in the normal way and a bill will be generated, but the bill will be stamped exempt, meaning we need to know how much it is going to cost you for what you came in for, therefore the CEO and the financial persons in the hospitals will still have to track the cost of the health care that has been provided to you.”

The new fee regime will cost the Government $100 million in lost revenue at the Bustamante Hospital for Children, and between $350 million and $500 million at the other public hospitals, Dalley said. The finance ministry, he told reporters, would be compensating the hospitals monthly, for the fees that will be written off.