Wright-Pascoe

Seven months after fees were abolished in public health facilities across the island, a shortage of resources and other problems still dog the system, according to Dr Rosemarie Wright-Pascoe, president of the Medical Association of Jamaica.

"The concerns are that there is not enough money to fund the health sector. We still have a problem with maintenance of equipment, air conditioners in operating theatres working intermittently and some laboratory facilities still not functioning," Wright-Pascoe told The Gleaner Tuesday.

She also noted that a shortage of pharmacists was resulting in a delay in persons getting medication.

User fees abolition

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health and the Environment reported that more than half-a-million patient visits have been made to public health facilities since the abolition of user fees.

In giving the breakdown of the figure, Health Minister Ruddy Spencer said in a release that there were over 329,617 patient visits to public hospitals between April and August of this year.

Spencer said that the figure represents more than a 16 per cent increase over patient visits for the comparative period for 2007. In addition, there were some 245,720 patient visits to health centres up to June, an almost 28 per cent increase over the corresponding period for last year.

Improving access to health

The health minister rubbished criticism of the transition by the Opposition, saying the Government was committed to improving access to health for poor Jamaicans.

Spencer said that he had indicated to the nation from the outset that the abolition of user fees would not, in itself, solve all the systemic problems of the public health sector.

"I made it clear to the Jamaican people that the policy would infuse in all of us a sense of urgency and a fixity of purpose in tackling these problems in a strategic, systematic, focused and consistent manner," he said.

According to Spencer, more than 90 per cent of the drugs on the vital, essential and necessary drug list are available and that a proposal has already been developed for the expansion of DrugServ pharmacies islandwide.

"With respect to the availability of pharmacists to work in the public health sector, we decided to increase the cadre of persons working as technicians to free up our pharmacists to do more clinical work and to reduce turnaround time and improve the quality of pharmaceutical services to the Jamaican people," the minister added.