Tufton blames slow procurement process for health sector pains
Published:Friday | November 11, 2022 | 5:58 AMChristopher Serju/Senior Gleaner Writer
The long-overdue upgrade of hospital infrastructure to improve service delivery in the public healthcare system is being hampered by government red tape, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton charged on Thursday.
“We have been criticised for paying attention to the upgrading of public-health infrastructure and giving money to the private sector,” he told the signing ceremony for the Code Care Project under which the Government is partnering with private medical institutions to clear a backlog in elective surgeries caused by the pandemic.
“I think that is a shorted-sighted view,” Tufton added before pinpointing the time-consuming procurement process as a major contributor to the delays.
“The truth is, the Code Care programme does assign substantial amounts of money to upgrade our operating theatres in three or four hospitals, but that is taking some time, and I will say with great trepidation and disappointment that we have not spent a dollar yet on the upgrading because of the procurement process,” he admitted.
“So we get the list, they say we need to get X, we need to get Y. We have the money to spend, but by the time you go through the procurement process is maybe one year before you get some of the stuff, and that is why the other complementary components are very important,” he explained. “Sometimes when we are criticised, the system – maybe for good cause – sometimes becomes a restriction for advancing the process that is taking place to upgrade some of these institutions.”
Following the signing of contracts with representatives of five health facilities, patients are expected to be referred to the institutions to have their surgeries done at below-market prices, the cost of which will be covered by the health ministry.
The institutions are the Andrews Memorial Hospital, the University Hospital of the West Indies, the Heart Institute of the Caribbean, Winchester Surgical and Medical Institute, and Medical Associates. These facilities will serve patients in the South East Regional Health Authority area, which covers Kingston and St Andrew, St Catherine, and St Thomas.
The project is aimed at reducing the surgical backlog by 2,000 over a 12-month period and also reducing wait times for elective surgeries to fewer than 180 days.
Responding on behalf of the private sector, Winchester Surgical and Medical Institute CEO Dr Neville Graham expressed the hope that the initiative will provide breathing room for the health ministry to resolve some of the outstanding infrastructural and human resources issues.
He lamented the long wait and suffering endured by many patients, which had been made worse by the impact of the pandemic, as well as the need for development of infrastructure, saying that the private sector had a responsibility to partner with the Government in improving public healthcare delivery.