THE Ministry of Health is to assign more doctors to primary health-care facilities as part of its effort to extend the operating hours.

Making his contribution to the 2025/26 Sectoral Debate last Tuesday, Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton announced the introduction of an Extended Care Initiative that will feature health centres located near hospitals offering services to the public as late as 10:00 pm, Mondays to Fridays.

During a tour of the Comprehensive Health Centre on Slipe Pen Road in Kingston last Thursday, Tufton noted that more doctors will be provided to facilitate that process.

“We are building out to provide more doctors in health centres where there are no doctors. Up to this point there were maybe 40 to 50 per cent of health centres — particularly in deep rural parts — where just nurses man those centres. We are changing the laws to make advanced nurse practitioners have prescriptive rights to provide a greater level of service to those centres and we are hiring more doctors in the primary health-care system, so we have a doctor in those health centres,” said Tufton.

“In the case where they are there, we will have them there five days per week as opposed to two days per week. All of this is intended to strengthen primary health-care offerings and to keep health services in the community in the first instance; [and when] people really need it, they go to the hospital, which is the right thing to do.

“We have about 29 health centres across Jamaica that offer extended hours up to 8:00 pm. We are going to move that to 10:00 pm and add more to that,” Tufton explained, adding that Jamaicans can expect the extended opening hours becoming a reality before the end of this year.

“It is part of our primary reform programme that we are going to start phasing in over the next number of months, certainly by the latter part of this year. We have to prepare the health centres and the staffing. We have to ensure that the scheduling of staffing is in place and security, if security is necessary. The office of the Chief Medical Officer is managing that process,” Tufton said.

During his tour of the heavily trafficked Comprehensive Health Centre, Tufton promised to ensure that it receives a much needed facelift.

“The reason for my visit is to assess personally and to continue the thrust I spoke about in the sectoral debate around building out and improving facilities at the primary health-care level. We are reaping some success because we have more Jamaicans going to health centres than going to hospitals where we have a crowding out. We have done that by improving the facilities for patients, offering more services in our facilities and extended hours,” said Tufton.

“The Comprehensive Health Centre sees about 70,000 persons a year. It is the largest in Kingston and St Andrew. It is one of those that are still on the waiting list to get a spruce up job. I came to speak to the team which offers excellent service. The facility is not a reflection of the quality of service offered here. You saw the pharmacy services that fill about 250 prescriptions a day. We went to the lab where the equipment is modern and the team there is just motivated and excited to serve but there are some other things we have to do,” added Tufton.

He said the ministry is planning to add a physiotherapy suite at the facility as part of its extended service.

“We want to improve the facilities in terms of air-conditioning where possible and necessary, adding more aesthetics in terms of the waiting area, seating, a paint job, chairs and things that are important to getting the job done and things important to the patients when they come and have to wait for the service,” Tufton said.