CLARENDON, Jamaica – Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton is calling on health regions to ensure that they protect, coordinate as efficiently as possible and are accountable for the plants over which they have responsibility.

He was speaking at the ceremony to hand over the completed fencing project at Lionel Town Hospital in Clarendon recently.

“Oftentimes some of the expenditure could have been less or not necessarily required if our maintenance arrangements were in place,” Dr Tufton said, while pointing to the many unfinished projects he found upon taking responsibility for the portfolio six years ago.

“There were cost and time overruns, and out of that I took a decision to transfer the project management function of most of these projects to the National Health Fund because they have a reputation of completing their projects,” he explained.

He noted that a committee was set up to review the procedure around how projects are implemented in the interest of correcting what had gone awry.

“Six plus years on, we are at a place where I can say that I believe the four regional authorities are much more capable and seized with the importance of taking on projects and completing them within time and budget,” the minister noted.

He expressed pleasure that based on the improvements, the regions would see greater responsibilities now being shifted to regional authorities to take on projects that they know are needed. This would give the NHF more scope to focus on its core function, which is the provision of medicines and distribution through pharmacies across the country.

The contractors were commended for completing the job on time and within the budget of $40 million. The fencing was financed by the National Health Fund.

For more than 30 years the hospital had been plagued by stray animals that roamed the premises freely and usually left their waste behind.

Meanwhile, Member of Parliament for Clarendon South Eastern and Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Pearnel Charles Jr, says the hospital is now more peaceful and secure from both animals and humans who were not always well-intentioned in their visits to the property.

“It is safer for our doctors, nurses, patients, family and visitors, and ancillary workers…It will now allow for the Ministry of Agriculture to work with the Senior Medical Officer and his team to plant up some of the land,” he said.

Minister Charles Jr noted that the hospital had done it successfully before, and those programmes could be restarted in collaboration with the councillors, the Mayor and others to ensure that the hospital, the park, the police station and all of Lionel Town reflect the best of Jamaica.

He also expressed the hope that the operating theatre would be rehabilitated and expanded.

Vice Chairman of the Southern Regional Health Authority, Michael Stern, informed the audience that the procurement process was now in place to install CCTV cameras at the hospital as well as to purchase another ambulance.