Trauma costing the health sector billions

The impact of trauma on Jamaica's health sector is often overlooked while it continues to wreak havoc on the sector, laments Dr Alfred Dawes, senior medical officer for the Savanna-la-Mar Hospital in Westmoreland.

The Immediate past president of the Jamaica Medical Doctors' Association further noted that the burden of both crime and road traffic accidents on the health sector is causing an already overburdened system to burst at the seams, with a price tag that runs in the billions of dollars. Resources, he said, that could be used to treat other conditions are diverted to treat injuries, of which up to 90 per cent may be preventable.

Without addressing crime and trauma, we will continue to have anaemic growth and a stressed, underfunded health sector. To fix health, we must fix Jamaica.

Read the full story on D1 of the Health Sector.