KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Government’s capacity to track injuries arising from incidences of violence against women and girls has been bolstered with the provision of $5 million in equipment, technical support and training to the Jamaica Injury Surveillance System (JISS).   

The equipment, including six computers, four wireless routers and two UPS, was officially handed over on Monday, August 23 by Spotlight Initiative Jamaica, a joint intervention of the European Union and United Nations Jamaica, to the Ministry of Health and Wellness, which aims to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls.

The donation will be assigned to the Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments of the Princess Margaret and Lionel Town hospitals, which will bring the current number of JISS sites in A&E departments to 11 across the four regional health authorities.

The JISS tracks violence related injuries, accident and unintentional injuries, suicide attempts and road traffic crash injuries.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Programmes Specialist, Ava Whyte Anderson, in representing UNDP Resident Representative Denise E Antonio, disclosed that the Spotlight Initiative will make additional donations of computers to the Port Antonio Hospital by September, effectively expanding the JISS to 12 sites nationwide.

She said the equipment will bolster national capacity to collect, analyse and apply strategic plans to incidences of violence against women and girls, and will be supplemented by training for staff at the target hospitals to support effective collection and management of the data.

Whyte-Anderson said the support from Spotlight Initiative is packaged to address the significant institutional capacity challenges related to data production and analysis of intentional injuries.

“The expanded JISS, combined with police data and community-based surveys, can now generate risk profiles for different types of injuries from 11 high traffic locations. In so doing, it is a valuable asset in tracking and monitoring family violence including violence against women and intimate partner violence (IPV),” she explained.

“Importantly, the data can be harnessed to design responsive monitoring and prevention programmes, as well as support and evaluate policy, legislative and intervention control measures,” she continued.

In accepting the donation on behalf of the Government, Director of Programme Coordination, Planning and Strategic Initiatives, Kadian Birch, who was representing Permanent Secretary Dunstan E Bryan, said the Ministry of Health is pleased to receive the technical support to enhance operations of injury surveillance.

“This underscores the importance of partnership in public health and the successes that can be derived,” she stated.

Birch outlined that the information from the JISS highlights the impact of violence related injuries on communities, identifies the circumstances of road traffic crash injuries and helps with the calculation of the cost of treatment of these injuries.

She further disclosed that the data is analysed for use by the Ministry of Health and Wellness in planning of hospital operations, injury prevention programmes including public education initiatives, mental health interventions and the management of persons who have been subjected to violence.