KINGSTON, Jamaica – There were approximately three million visits to public health facilities in 2024 with nearly 1.9 million being to health centres and 1,155,000 to hospitals.

Minister of Health and Wellness, Christopher Tufton provided the numbers on Tuesday during his contribution to the 2025/26 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives.

“It is important to note that more Jamaicans are visiting their health centres, and less to our hospitals, when compared to five years ago. This is an important policy success,” Tufton told the House.

He noted that there were approximately 300,000 more visits to health centres and 250,000 less visits to hospitals last year.

“This is so because our health centres have benefited significantly from improvements in infrastructure, added services and better service delivery,” he stated. He highlighted that the Government has invested in community healthcare “and the people are getting the benefits of this improved service”.

The following were conducted at health facilities in Jamaica in 2024:

▪ 63,562 surgeries performed

▪ 15,392 major surgeries

▪ 11,743 minor surgeries

▪ 7,120 day surgeries

▪ 29,301 minor outpatient surgeries

▪ 10,097,052 lab tests were done – 9,651,083 in hospitals and 445,969 in health centres

▪ 703,780 diagnostic (imaging) tests done

▪ 511,791 visits to Accident and Emergency departments.

–   Lynford Simpson