Spencer Pleased With Health Centre Upgrading Programme

MONTEGO BAY — Minister of Health, Hon. Rudyard Spencer, said the programme to rehabilitate health centres across the island is going well.

He informed that 48 of the 56 targeted facilities have been upgraded to date with adequate staff put in place.

“Importantly, what we have now in those health centres is a doctor, we have a nurse, we have a health care worker, but more importantly, we have a medical records worker,” the Minister stated, as he addressed a fundraising dinner staged by the Friends of the Savanna-la-mar Public General Hospital on Saturday (October 29) at the Sean Lavery Faith Hall in the Westmoreland capital.

The Health Minister explained that the inclusion of a medical records officer as part of the health team at the clinics, will free up medical personnel to take care of clients.

“Doctors must do their work. We pay them to practise medicine and that is what we want them to do. We want the nurses to practise medicine, and in every health centre we have a medical records person writing up the medical records themselves,” he stated.

The Minister informed that a health care worker will also be employed to the clinics, who will be charged with monitoring follow-up visits by patients.

The rehabilitation of the island’s health centres is being undertaken under the Health Centre Rehabilitation programme, which got underway in 2009, and is being funded by the National Health Fund (NHF) at a cost of $300 million. Recently, some 19 clinics were repaired by the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) at a cost of $131 million.

The upgrading efforts are part of a drive by Government to strengthen and re-emphasise primary health care to reduce the stress on the hospitals and also provide Jamaicans with unrestricted access to quality and basic health services in their communities.

By Bryan Miller, JIS Reporter