Leaving no one behind: Jamaica’s road to universal health coverage

Jamaica like every other country takes very seriously its commitment to the attainment of Universal Health Coverage by 2030.

For us, Universal Health Coverage, in simple terms, means that our entire population has timely access to a package of quality services that is promotive, protective, preventative, curative, rehabilitative and palliative.

This is not an easy task for a small island developing state that faces a triple burden of diseases: communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases and natural disasters, and where public health expenditure is currently at 3.56% of GDP. Measures to increase health financing and to increase the efficiency and accountability of the health services are critical in that context.
With this in mind, Jamaica has placed great emphasis on enhancing our primary care programme, developing human resources for health and advancing a strategy for health care, that refocuses the population on wellness and taking responsibility for the maintenance of good health. This is intended to trigger a drastic change in mindset away from dependence on treatment and curative services.

Our ten-year strategic plan focuses on six strategic goals that look at safeguarding access to equitable, comprehensive and quality health care, improving leadership and governance, improving health financing for equity and efficiency, sufficient human resources, social participation and health promotion and improving infrastructure.

We have begun madam, president by renaming the ministry to The Ministry of Health and Wellness and have rolled out a package of wellness activities, which emphasizes, inter alia, workplace wellness, health menu options in restaurants and accelerating the national nutrition policy and national nutrition standards for schools. 

We are reforming our primary care model to take account of our changing epidemiological and demographic profiles. This includes enhancing the resolutive capacity of our health centres, by extending opening hours and expanding the services offered.

Madam president, Jamaica is accelerating towards a truly integrated health service delivery network with the patient at the centre and utilizing the life stage approach. We are strengthening primary health care, while at the same time improving secondary care services. We are breaking ground for new facilities and upgrading infrastructure and equipment in others.

Improving patient flows, decreasing waiting times and meeting present and forecasted needs of the population, are a priority. 

We have developed partnerships for the provision of diagnostic and therapeutic services, as well as with the private sector, other government and non-government agencies in advancing health promotion and health protection strategies.

We are improving access to essential medicines through increased numbers and efficiency of public sector pharmacies and establishing public/private partnerships to provide drugs for public patients.

Coordination of the health services, access to health information and data capture for monitoring, evaluation and research are an essential part of the improvements in the service provided. 
With the help of PAHO and other partners, such as the Inter-American Development Bank, we have made advances in the development of a national information system for health, with a programme to be rolled out over the next five years.

We believe that investments, policies and programmes should be guided by credible data and as such the Ministry of Health and Wellness have advanced an annual research agenda. This year, we have earmarked funds to support research.

Madam president, we are developing a human resource plan for health in the context of which we are shaping our overall training plan to meet the present and anticipated needs of the renewed health sector, including engaging with our training institutions, with a view to targeting training of specialists in family medicine, to support primary care.

Following our no user fee policy initiated in 2008, the government is seeking to introduce its most transformative reform, the National Health Insurance Plan (NHIP), to increase overall resources for the health sector; increase efficiency in the use of available resources; promote sustainable health care financing; and improve the quality and coverage of health services.

Madam president, Jamaica has an ambitious agenda for the next few years to accelerate the country towards the attainment of universal health coverage by 2030. In this regard, we have set our national targets for quality investments in health and have aligned external funding sources with improvements in our health system. In that connection, we thank the WHO, PAHO and our other partners for their continuous support. We are steadfast in our goals, with a clear intention to leave no one behind; to ensure that our population will attain the highest standard of health care services provided by a motivated health workforce.

Minister of Health & Wellness @christufton addresses the plenary session of the World Health Assembly in Geneva. Dr. Tufton spoke to the strides Jamaica is making in Universal Health Coverage. Click here to watch full presentation https://t.co/t20P8lbBJx #healthandwellness pic.twitter.com/1RKD5TmkK3

— MOHW JA (@themohgovjm) May 22, 2019