KINGSTON AND St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC) Councillors have resolved to actively promote the Government's National Health Fund (NHF) programme, assisting with public education and registration of eligible individuals in their divisions.
At yesterday's Council meeting, both opposition and ruling party Councillors fully endorsed the initiative and offered to help promote the programme in their constituencies. They lauded its implementation as extremely necessary since in the past, help came hugely through the Councillors meagre budgets.
"It's one of the finest pieces of legislation in Jamaica during the last decade," Deputy Mayor Larel Thomas said. "I'm convinced that the NHF is an important asset for the citizens especially for children, the indigent and the less fortunate."
FUNDING
The Government recently announced the $2.2 billion NHF to cushion the cost of drugs needed by the chronically ill in Jamaica about 750,000 persons. The fund will cover medicines for the major chronic illnesses which face Jamaicans including hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, breast and prostate cancer and asthma. The tobacco industry will be funding nearly half the costs of the scheme by way of a 23 per cent excise tax on cigarettes.
"As Councillors, from time to time we encounter individuals who ask us for help with their prescriptions," Councillor Angela Brown-Burke said. "The NHF will go a far way in assisting those who need help at that level to get it."
Others like JLP Councillor Desmond McKenzie said the scheme was a welcome one, but asked that some consideration be given to elderly persons who require expensive surgery as well as for measures to be put in place so that those who can afford it do not abuse the system.
"We ask that consideration be given to these," he said.
