Health Minister Wants UHWI to Offer Free Health Care for Children

Minister of Health, Hon. Dr. Fenton Ferguson, has said the Government will be pushing for free health care for children at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI).

“I think a no user fee policy for children and adolescents at the University Hospital of the West Indies was analysed by leading scholars in this area to be a necessary and affordable policy. Even more so, is the fact that it affects the most vulnerable and dependent age cohort in our population,” he stated.

He was addressing Friday’s opening of the 10th Annual Caribbean Neurosciences Symposium and Workshop at the Montego Bay Conference Centre in St. James.

Dr. Ferguson informed that Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Portia Simpson-Miller, has consistently expressed the need for the no user fee policy to be fully implemented at the UHWI.

He said he will be urging the new Board of Management of the hospital, to be put in place shortly, to consider offering free health services for children and adolescents.

Meanwhile, he informed that work is to get underway soon, on the construction of a cardiac unit at the Bustamante Hospital for Children in Kingston.

He said there is need for a similar hospital in western Jamaica that will meet the specific needs of the youngest members of the population.

By Bryan Miller, JIS Reporter