Challenges in Jamaica's Public Health System

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Developing countries often struggle to source, utilize and maintain resources, to provide quality health services, and to make health services equally accessible to all members of the public. These are often the factors that fundamentally hinder the overall performance of the public health sector in these countries and Jamaica is no exception. The infectious bacterial outbreak that occurred last year in two of Jamaica’s special care nurseries was a manifestation of such factors. This outbreak resulted in the deaths of nineteen premature infants and has given rise to many question regarding the overall efficiency of Jamaica’s public health system. It has been speculated that the shortcomings of the system is perhaps a result of a neglectful …show more content…

The core function of the health information system is to attain, manage and disseminate data associated with the health of individuals and the administrative activities of the health sector. It captures the essentially data needed to successfully allocate, monitor and control resources that enables the health sector to provide quality services. Under the National Health Service Act of 1997 Jamaica’s health sector undergo a reform which reorganized the sector into four regulating authorities. This act was an initiative of the Ministry of Health to enhance the sector permitting each region to govern, plan and deliver public health services to their respective jurisdiction. However the disadvantage of this act was a fragmented health information system since there was no clearly define standards for the collection and reporting data established with the act. This would mean that each region will have to determine what data will be collected and disseminated for their respective …show more content…

Universally it is recognised that a trained and skilled workforce is a key component for improving the effectiveness and productivity of the health system however it has been in short supply in many of Jamaica’s health care facilities. There has been a steady decrease in the number of health workers particularly the nurses who between 2002 and 2008 over 1800 of them migrated abroad. With the implementation of the no user fee policy the remaining workforce has been burden with manning the increased number of patients throughout the public health sector; a burden in which the workforce was not adequately trained or manned to prepare for. The workforce would have needed to be trained to effectively service the health care system; however, with the Ministry of Health’s inability to develop a sustainable method of health care financing this is not currently possible. This is due to the Ministry of Health having to priortize what projects to action based of the initiatives set by the Government of Jamaica. Although the Ministry of Health has other initiatives, it must to establish programmes that to develop the skillset of the existing workforce as well as incentives that will deter them from

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