Ministry Paper On Sustainable Financing For Healthcare System To Be Unveiled

Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr. the Hon. Christopher Tufton, is to unveil a Ministry Paper on sustainable financing for the healthcare system, in the coming months.

“This is a follow-on to the Green Paper on a National Health Insurance Plan that was tabled in 2019, which was not pursued as desired due to the priorities of COVID-19,” Dr. Tufton said, as he made his contribution to the 2022/23 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representative on May 3.

Dr. Tufton also informed that the Ministry will embark on a series of consultations within Government and the country, as well as with multilateral partners around healthcare financing in the coming months.

“I have appointed Dr. Damien King, an economist and Executive Director of CAPRI, to lead the national discussions on the current challenges we are facing with health financing and implications for poverty and the economic and social advancement of Jamaicans,” he said.

“The goal here is to achieve greater public understanding of the challenges of healthcare financing and implications for each of us as individuals, to consult with local and multilateral stakeholders to explore health financing options and to assist in the advocacy that is necessary to ensure a more sustainable health-financing model,” Dr. Tufton added.

The plans come as the country faces spiralling healthcare costs and the need to address the sick profile of the country, which faces a growing challenge with lifestyle diseases.

Dr. Tufton informed that a close look at the budget of the National Health Fund (NHF) shows that costs have escalated by 139 per cent ($4.6 billion in financial year 2015/16 to $15 billion in financial year 2021/22, adjusted for COVID-19).

He said that projections for the next three years are suggesting further increases of approximately 30 per cent.

“At this rate of demand and cost increases to treat over 720,000 Jamaican served by the NHF, this critical entity will need approximately $40 billion over the next three years or risk being unable to address the needs of Jamaicans suffering from some sort of illness,” Dr. Tufton noted.

In 2020/2021, the NHF spent $1.27 billion on hypertension compared to $940 million over the 2014/2015 period. In 2020/2021, the organisation spent $1.41 billion on diabetes compared to $887 million in 2014/2015.

This is a 59 per cent increase.

Over the 2020/2021 period, Jamaicans spent $2.38 billion in NHF co-payments on drugs to treat high blood pressure compared to $1.46 billion for the 2014/2015 period.

“This is a 62 per cent increase. Jamaicans also spent a staggering $1.57 billion on drugs for diabetes for the 2020/2021 period when compared to $862.82 million for the 2014/2015 period. This represents an 82.6 per cent increase,” Dr. Tufton stated.

He noted that healthcare is not free. “We all pay, one way or the other. The question is how and how much. It is an issue we must tackle frontally in the coming years,” the Minister said.

“It is time to restructure the health system to achieve a more sustainable financing mechanism and to do so in a way that ensures efficiency and accountability of existing expenditure as well as a greater proportional contribution to reflect the increased demands on the system. We also need to determine how this restructured health system is to be financed,” Dr. Tufton added.