KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Culture, Health, Arts, Sports, and Education (CHASE) Fund allocated $15 million to the Ministry of Health’s Jamaica Moves campaign last year.

Details of allocation are provided in the CHASE Fund’s annual report for the 2018-2019 fiscal year tabled in Parliament yesterday.

The report noted that Jamaica Moves, which is now engulfed in a controversy over the contracts awarded to the public relations firm Market Me, has focused on physical activity and the importance of eating healthy and getting annual health checks.

In 2018 the campaign, which is funded by the CHASE Fund in partnership with other entities, shifted focus with an added concentration on school interventions in response to an increase in adolescent obesity by 68 per cent on average.

“A total of $15 million was recommended toward the ministry’s 2018/2019 campaign, of which $5 million is specific to CHASE messages focusing on kidney disease as part of the fund’s renal public education programme,” said the report.

The allocation to Jamaica Moves was a fraction of the $505 million which the CHASE Fund allocated to 136 health and wellness projects in the last fiscal year.

These included approvals for the establishment of a High Dependency Unit at the Kingston Public Hospital; equipment for wards and emergency areas at the Spanish Town Hospital; a pathology laboratory at the Mandeville Regional Hospital; and financial assistance to patients undergoing treatment for cancer and end stage renal disease.