SRHA Chairman Calls for Wellness Mindset

Jamaicans are being urged to develop a mindset of wellness that involves taking responsibility for their own health and lifestyle choices.

Chairman of the Southern Regional Health Authority (SRHA), Wayne Chen, in making the call said, “It’s not about pushing off the responsibility of healthcare on citizens, but we have to shore-up individuals, communities and families to be stronger.

“It won’t be easy because over time we have become dependent on hospitals to get it right… and they must, but that is after the fact. It’s an important change in mindset but we have to get it right,” Mr. Chen said.

He was delivering the keynote address at the handover of ambulances and fleet vehicles on the grounds of the SRHA at 3 Brumalia Road, Mandeville, on Friday (February 2).

Noting the rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) due primarily to unhealthy food consumption along with limited physical activity, Mr. Chen said “part of our strategy, therefore, has to be around wellness and how we encourage our people to make healthy choices in diet, lifestyle and exercise and even drinking and smoking”.

The well-being of the wider community is an integral part of the wellness mindset, he noted.

“This also has implications for the high levels of violence in the country – Are the children next door under control? Are we identifying the [at-risk] 14-year-old? We have to realise that communities have to take care of each other. This will require partnerships with other ministries and agencies like the Ministry of Education and Youth,” he contended.

Taking advantage of opportunities presented by technology to improve healthcare delivery is also key, Mr. Chen said.

He noted that SRHA is leading the way in this regard, with the May Pen Hospital recently becoming the first public health facility in the Caribbean region to launch a digital records system.

“This is a quantum leap forward when a doctor can now touch a screen and see all of a patient’s lab reports and diagnostics; in one second it’s there,” he said with pride.

“We have to develop a welcoming mindset for the new technology – not as a threat to how things were previously done but as tools that can make us far more efficient, more productive and can save lives,” Mr. Chen added.

A total of nine vehicles valued at just under $99 million, including three retrofitted ambulances, were handed over to SRHA.

The ambulances were customised based on a design conceptualised in 2016 by Fleet Coordinator, Robert Robinson, resulting in millions in savings.

With the additional vehicles, SRHA now has some 90 vehicles in its fleet, including 21 ambulances.

SRHA Regional Director, Michael Bent, said that the three new ambulances will replace older units serving hospitals in the region’s three parishes of Manchester, Clarendon and St. Elizabeth.

The older ambulances will be placed at primary-care facilities.

“Our fleet of ambulances do thousands of trips each year, so we are putting more reliable vehicles in the fleet. We have now moved from 18 to 21, and each hospital has at least three; some have up to four,” he noted.

He informed that the Fleet Manager has upgraded the design of the new ambulances to include a refrigerator to transport specimen and samples instead of using igloos.

Mr. Bent said that the buses that were retrofitted were bought and customised locally making the process more cost-effective.

They are built to local specifications to ensure greater reliablity.