Health Ministry Looking to Improve Coordination among Regional Authorities
By: , April 19, 2016The Key Point:
The Facts
- The Health Minister said there is also opportunity for the RHAs to collaborate in the procurement of diagnostic and other equipment.
- The general objective of the plan is to strengthen the strategic development planning process for the health sector, focusing mainly on the continued roll-out of the Primary Healthcare Renewal Programme and Non-Communicable Diseases.
The Full Story
Minister of Health, Dr. the Hon. Christopher Tufton, says the Ministry is looking to strengthen coordination among the four Regional Health Authorities (RHAs), particularly as it relates to the sharing of expertise.
“We are looking at things like telemedicine, because you have the experts at the University Hospital of the West Indies, who can provide support to Savanna-la-Mar, for example. The truth is, people administer health care between India and America all the time through technology, so it is not difficult to do, and we do have the technology to do it,” Dr. Tufton said.
He was speaking on the Jamaica Information Service’s (JIS) television programme Issues and Answers recently.
The Health Minister said there is also opportunity for the RHAs to collaborate in the procurement of diagnostic and other equipment.
Meanwhile, Dr. Tufton said he will be examining the 10-year strategic development plan for the health sector. The plan aims to provide quality and affordable healthcare services to the population.
“I am going to be meeting with the (Ministry) team to look at the development of it in a way that also examines and evaluates the effectiveness of the regional structure, where there may be need for an adjustment of that,” Dr. Tufton said.
The general objective of the plan is to strengthen the strategic development planning process for the health sector, focusing mainly on the continued roll-out of the Primary Healthcare Renewal Programme and Non-Communicable Diseases.
This includes reconfiguration of the clinical network of providers in order to improve clinical management and use of resources, and to ensure that all points of entry into the healthcare system are prepared to offer the basic package of primary healthcare services.
There are four RHAs in Jamaica: South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA); the North East Regional Health Authority (NERHA); the Southern Regional Health Authority (SRHA); and the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA).