Work Continuing to Bolster Healthcare Service Delivery and Resilience

Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr. Hon. Christopher Tufton, says work will continue during 2022/23 to bolster the public health system’s resilience and delivery of quality care to Jamaicans.

“The pandemic, as you all know, has reinforced… the need… for us to reflect, to learn but also, very importantly, to press ahead, in urgency, with our plans to enhance the resilience of our public health system,” he noted

This, Dr. Tufton, pointed out, includes enabling more effective communication, and enhancing greater efficiencies in areas such as telemedicine and hospital upgrades.

He was speaking during the Health Ministry’s thanksgiving service at Boulevard Baptist Church in St. Andrew on Sunday (April 3), under the theme: ‘Get back to Life’, to mark the start of the 2022/23 fiscal year.

Dr. Tufton said renewed focus will be placed on mental health during the new year.

“Mental health has been a challenge over the past two years. [This has been] largely linked to the responses to the [coronavirus] COVID-19 pandemic- isolation, loneliness, anxiety, [and] the non-clinical measures- that have created significant uncertainty [for] our population,” the Minister noted.

Consequently, Dr. Tufton said the Ministry will “pay particular attention” to this area “as we attempt to, not just live with COVID, …but… restore normality of life to our population, community and particular stakeholder groups.”

He emphasised that partnerships are critical to the Ministry’s achieving its plans and objectives in 2022/23.

“We are guided in those efforts by a critical plan we have in place… a plan that will depend on us to implement. But I certainly believe in the partnership that is necessary, both at the country stakeholder level, including the church, at the national level… and the international level through bilateral and multilateral partnerships,” the Minister pointed out.

Dr. Tufton said while the past two years have been challenging, particularly because of the pandemic, Jamaicans must continue working together to overcome these.

“We believe that the most significant lesson is that we rise, or we fall together. No matter how strong we are as individuals, it is through collaboration and partnerships that we achieve the best of ourselves and our communities and families, as we move about on our daily activities,” he said.

Dr. Tufton said that as the 2022/23 fiscal year get underway, “we start by giving thanks to the Lord, as a team, [and] asking for guidance as we attempt to make decisions which will continue to [positively] impact the lives of most Jamaicans.”

Minister of State in the Health Ministry, Hon. Juliet Cuthbert Flynn, Permanent Secretary, Dunstan Bryan, and other members of the Ministry’s staff were also in attendance at the thanksgiving service.