The University Hospital of the West Indies is among five private hospitals that have been contracted by the Ministry of Health to perform elective surgeries and provide recovery spaces for public sector patients.
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Health Minister Dr. Christopher Tufton
By Kimone Witter
The Ministry of Health and Wellness has signed contracts with five private health institutions in Kingston to perform elective surgeries and provide recovery spaces for public sector patients.
This is being facilitated under the Public-Private Partnership component of the project CODE CARE initiative.
The institutions are the University Hospital of the West Indies, Andrews Memorial Hospital, Heart Institute of the Caribbean, Medical Associates Hospital, and Winchester Surgical and Medical Institute.
These institutions will serve patients in the South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA), which covers Kingston and St. Andrew, St. Catherine, and St. Thomas.
A total of 2,000 surgeries will be performed under CODE CARE, which aims to clear the backlog of outstanding elective cases built up during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking Thursday at the signing ceremony at the Ministry's Emergency Operations Centre in New Kingston, Dr. Christopher Tufton said approximately 115 surgeries have, so far, been conducted under the programme.
Just over $1 billion has been budgeted for the CODE CARE programme.
Of the sum, $80 million is earmarked for rehabilitating operating theatres in the public health system; $200 million for private-public partnerships; $223 million for equipment; $279 million for nursing missions; and $153 million for additional staff hours. Another $23 million is earmarked for project management, and $59 million for communications.
Operating theatre nurses
Dr. Tufton, in the meantime, said a team of operating room nurses will arrive in Jamaica in December to alleviate the shortage of specialist nurses in this area.
The nurses will be attached to the Noel Holmes Hospital in Hanover and work alongside the surgical team as part of the CODE CARE programme.
Dr. Tufton said this will be the first team of several, as the ministry hopes "we will have a group coming in every week".
He said there have been "over 100 expressions of interest" from the diaspora as well as "friends of Jamaica".
The minister said agreements have also been signed with the University of Miami and Hartford Health Systems to facilitate cross border, advanced nurses training and, eventually, flexible contracts.
This programme is expected to begin next year.
"The teams are now reviewing the course outline for emergency care and for oncology, cancer care, and I'm hoping that they will agree on an outline that will see the first batch of trainees - these are RNs now - who will do advance training sometime in the early new year," Dr. Tufton revealed.
"If it works, then we can expand it, because I do see over time much more mobility in labour. What we are trying to do is to get the mobility to work two ways," he said.
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