Richard Morais, Gleaner Writer

Rudyard Spencer, minister of health and environment. - file

WESTERN BUREAU:

IN ORDER to facilitate the Government's abolition of user fees at health-care facilities across the island, Health Minister Rudyard Spencer says more people will be employed and additional money will be injected into the sector.

"It is going to require significantly more personnel, more sessions must be done, plants must and will be upgraded, you are going to need more money to purchase more pharmaceuticals, all these things must be done and will be done by April 1," Spencer said. He was giving the clearest indication yet that the allocation to health will likely be increased in the 2008/2009 budget.

The minister also warned that the move would not be a panacea to the problems faced by the delivery of health care.

"We will begin to absorb some of the expenditure that the Jamaican people are required to make at the point of service delivery. It cannot, on its own, guarantee sustainable access to quality health care," he noted.

The minister said the nation could save $2 billion just by persons being non-violent to each other. Many of the admissions to hospitals each year are the result of violence-related injuries.

Minister Spencer, who was delivering the third Hugh Lawson Shearer Memorial Lecture at the University Diabetes Outreach Programme dinner, at the Holliday Inn Sunspree Resort in Montego Bay last Saturday, also called for better use of the roadways to minimise road fatalities.

The function, which was chaired by Dr Alverston Bailey, was attended by Dr Denise Eldemire-Shearer, widow of the late Hugh Shearer; the recipient of the Sir Hugh Sherlock Award for 2008, Dr Winston Davidson, who was presented with his award during the four-day conference; and Professor Errol Morrison, the backbone behind diabetes research in Jamaica.