MINISTER of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton has sought to allay fears that several doctors who recently graduated from the Faculty of Medical Sciences at The University of the West Indies, Mona, will be unable to find jobs in the public health sector.

In July the university graduated 223 medical doctors, the largest single batch in its history, sparking fear that despite an obvious shortage of physicians in the public health sector they might not find jobs there as the available posts have already been filled.

But addressing a Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange this week, Tufton said those fears are unfounded.

“As far as I am concerned they have all been placed, unless I am being told otherwise, but I checked with the unit that is managing them…and indeed it is more than that number that has been placed, because we have also had to place interns who come from overseas,” said Tufton.

“Some of them chose to go elsewhere, not all of them want to work in the public system, but those who have chosen to work in the system have been offered places as far as I understand,” added Tufton.

He told Observer editors and reporters that he has been meeting with some of the recently graduated doctors to discuss their conditions of work, explain retentions and other issues.

“But you have to bear in mind that the positions that we require in public health are varied, so in October or November this year we will be having a very large career expo where we are going to put on display about 26 career options in public health,” said Tufton.

“Because one of the things we want to explain to people is that health doesn’t just function with doctors and nurses…and where the shortage is greatest is in the areas of specialisation, and those are the ones who are recruited significantly abroad,” Tufton added

The health minister pointed out that late last year he announced the establishment of 927 new permanent posts in the public health sector for medical practitioners.

At that time Tufton indicated that the new posts were in addition to the 140 that were granted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is a roughly 60 per cent increase in the number of physicians who can be employed within the health system. This is the highest number of physicians employed to the public health system in Jamaica’s history. It is also the most significant increase in the number of doctors at any one time for the last 50 years,” Tufton told Parliament last October.

Against that background he told the Observer Monday Exchange that the health ministry is working to ensure that sufficient medical professionals are in the system.

“So under compensation reform we have added more permanent posts than ever before…we have standardised their hours to reduce overtime to get more efficiency and hired more people. But we have a major, major bottleneck there because of the mass migration of workers,” said Tufton as he pointed to the more than 600 Barry Wint scholarships awarded by the Government this year for people to study in the medical field.

“Beyond that we are doing significant discussions now with Philippines, Nigeria, I think India — and of course Cuba is a long-standing friend in terms of health-care workers — because what we have decided to do is that we need to train more, but we also need to join in the process of recruiting from overseas where we have gaps, because one of the biggest fears that I have…is to build out hospitals and have nobody to put in them,” he said.

“Over the next year you are going to see more openings with Western Children and Adolescent Hospital opening, that needs about 1,000 people to work… Cornwall [Regional Hospital] will come back on stream of course, Spanish Town [Hospital] in another year and a half… so we are having to go very strategic and start the planning now to fill the void that already exists and to meet the increased demand,” added Tufton.