A total of 13 health facilities across the

island are to be upgraded and equipped under a major programme being undertaken

by the Government to strengthen healthcare delivery and combat non-communicable

diseases (NCDs).

The facilities are Spanish Town, St. Ann’s

Bay and May Pen Hospitals; as well as Greater Portmore, Old Harbour, St. Jago

Park, St. Ann’s Bay, Brown’s Town, Ocho Rios, May Pen East, May Pen West, Mocho

and Chapelton health centres.

The project is being undertaken as part of

the US$50 million ‘Health Systems Strengthening Programme’ being funded by the

Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). 

The European Union (EU) has committed €10 million towards its

implementation.

Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr.

Christopher Tufton, on Tuesday (January 28) officially launched the programme

and signed a US$674,000 contract with firm Project Planning and Management

Limited, to provide designs for the 13 institutions over the next 11 months.

In addition to the physical upgrading of

the three hospitals and 10 heath centres, the programme will provide for the

purchase of new equipment to support the delivery of care, and the design and

implementation of information systems.

“Information systems for health promise

collaborative care, cost control and the use of big data to diagnose and treat

individual patients, while enhancing the overall management of the health of

Jamaicans,” Dr. Tufton said at the ceremony held at the Courtyard by Marriott

in New Kingston.

He noted that approximately 800,000

Jamaicans are set to benefit from the design work and the construction and

retrofitting to follow thereafter.

The minister said that the programme is the

single largest investment in public health infrastructure in Jamaica in three

decades and takes the country further along the path to fulfilling the World

Health Organisation (WHO) criteria for a well-functioning health system.

The Health Systems Strengthening Programme

has, as its objectives, the improvement of the health of Jamaica’s population

by strengthening comprehensive policies for the prevention of NCD risk factors

and for the implementation of a chronic care model with improved access to

strengthened and integrated primary and hospital services networks that provide

more efficient and higher quality care.

It is being implemented at a time when some

70 per cent of deaths annually are NCD-related.

Statistics show that one in three Jamaicans

have hypertension; one in eight are living with diabetes; and one in two are

overweight or obese, putting them at risk for NCDs.

Meanwhile, IDB Team Lead for the ‘Health

Systems Strengthening Programme’, Ricardo Perez-Cuevas, noted that the

initiative is aimed at improving the health of the Jamaican people.

“It is a novel and well-rounded programme that we are sure will become a significant reference for the Caribbean and Latin America,” he said.

— JIS