MEDICAL practitioner Dr Craig Eaton is pushing to foster greater collaboration between the public and private health sector with his new medical facility, Centre of Clinical Excellence (CCE) Medical Centre, which was officially opened on Wednesday.

Eaton said the main goal of the clinic is to provide residents from the surrounding community with another option instead of spending long hours at the public health facilities.

“CCE Medical Centre is a primary care facility focused on trying to get into our surrounding environments as well as the extended health-care systems in Jamaica.

“I know the hospitals are very overwhelmed with the patients, especially the diabetes and hypertension patients. If they can somehow shuffle them towards us to take that burden off, because that is something that is very manageable by the primary care physicians,” Eaton told the Jamaica Observer.

He said he wants to focus more on educating patients about their health conditions and not just prescribing a solution.

“I find that there is a breakdown in communication between doctor and patient especially as time has progressed and a lot more doctors are coming through the health-care system. Patients do not get the one and one time with a doctor to sit down and actually go through what exactly they are experiencing, why they need to be on the medication for a period of time and what else they need to be doing. I am trying to focus more on educating the population,” said Eaton.

He was supported by Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton who used the opening ceremony to underscore the importance of having a connection between public and private health-care facilities.

“At the end of the day, no single segment can satisfy the demand for health-care services and indeed, what you are offering here is absolutely essential because whenever people do not have this option, they end up at KPH [Kingston Public Hospital] or Spanish Town Hospital and we get overcrowded,” said Tufton as he applauded Eaton.

Tufton noted the strong use of technology by CCE Medical Centre and noted that this is the direction that public health care is going in order to better facilitate patients.

To mark the official opening of the medical centre, which is based on Westminister Road in St Andrew, a number of residents of the surrounding Cassia Park community were treated to free medical checks.