By Trudy Simpson, Staff Reporter 
Victoria Jubilee maternity hospital in downtown Kingston. - File
FIFTY-THREE-YEAR-OLD Hyacinth Austin readily admits that she prefers to access health care in the public hospitals and health centres.
"I am not a private doctor fan ... I only go there when my clinic is not working," said Ms. Austin, who battled asthma for many years.
She benefits from the cheaper user fees offered by public health facilities.
"At the clinic, mi pay $1,000 and mi get mi blood check and mi urine check and mi blood pressure check and mi still can use the rest of the money fi buy soup," she told The Gleaner on Friday. "But when mi deh ah di private doctor, mi pay $1,000 and the soup money no deh deh."
There are others who agree with her, among them contractor Wayneton Walters and his common-law wife, Annmarie Hendricks.
Even with a 60 to 70 per cent hike in user fees for public health services, they argue that it is still much cheaper than the private sector. Registration, after all, is $100 for some services.
"They are trying to improve the system (and) the cost is reasonable compared to other areas like diagnostic tests. If you compare it with others on the outside, it's sometimes 50 per cent cheaper in the public hospitals," Mr. Walters said.
The Gleaner compared gazetted user fees for some services in public hospitals with similar services offered in the private hospitals public sector prices were much cheaper.
For example, Nuttall Memorial Hospital, a private hospital in Kingston, asks patients to deposit between $25,000 and $38,000 for normal maternal deliveries depending on whether the patients have health
insurance.
By comparison, the government gazetted fee table indicates that deposits for delivery at the public hospitals run from a low of $1,450 for public patients and $2,750 for private patients. Private patients will have to pay an $8,000 deposit in advance, the Health Ministry said.
Minor surgery at two private hospitals in Kingston, Nuttall Memorial and Medical Associates, can run up a bill of $12,000 to $25,000. Patients in public hospitals would be
presented with a bill of $250 to $16,800 for similar services.
ROOM, AMBULANCE FEES
Likewise, major operations for public hospital patients range from $9,000 to $24,000, while they cost between $50,000 to $80,000, at hospitals such as the Medical Associates. It must also be pointed out that persons coming into a private hospital such as Nuttall for day surgery would pay $1,000.
The cost of rooms also differs significantly. At the Tony Thwaites Wing at the University Hospital of the West Indies, for example, rooms were said to cost between $3,900 and $5,750 per night compared to $500 and $3,500 per day for certain rooms in public hospitals.
In addition, persons wishing to access an ambulance operated in the public health system are charged between $1,000 and $2,000 within a parish,
compared to the ambulance fee of $4,500 at St. Josephs Hospital.
ACCESS CARE QUICKLY
But despite higher costs, Terry Miller*, a 22-year-old recent
college graduate, and Patrick Rutherford, Medical Associates' hospital administrator, said
private hospitals and clinics are the way to go. Persons access care at private hospitals more quickly than at public hospitals, they said.
Mr. Rutherford said that
private hospitals are especially critical in cases of elective
surgeries as there are long waiting lists for these surgeries in the public sector and they are often postponed for priority cases involving violence-related injuries and motor vehicle accidents.
Ms. Miller agreed, stating that she was forced to seek help at Nuttall Memorial last year when she became fed up with the long waiting period at the Kingston Public Hospital's emergency room.
"Dem say dem couldn't deal with me now because people ah come in with stab wounds and gunshots while my nose ah bleed-like mi ah no nobody. So mi tek mi self off to Nuttall where my dollars are appreciated. I went to the emergency section and after about five minutes, mi get through," she said. "Better service with a smile. Mi nah lef' out my private hospital."
* (Name changed on request)
