Restoring credibility to primary healthcare – Dr Tufton

WESTERN BUREAU:

Health and wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton says he wants to see more effort going into improving the credibility of Jamaica’s primary healthcare system, which includes promoting greater use of community health clinics by citizens.

“Our primary healthcare system and, by extension, our health centres have to be the backbone of our public-health infrastructure as a country,” said Tufton, who spoke recently at a ceremony held at the Green Pond Health Centre in Montego Bay. The health cenetre has been adopted by the Atlanta Montego Bay Sister Cities Committee under the health ministry’s Adopt-A-Clinic Programme.

“It’s in these small buildings, not the big hospitals, that mothers must get advice on their children, where children must get their regular check-ups, and where visitations must take place in the homes and communities to reduce the risk of persons leading lives that develop into bad habits, which develop into premature illness and, ultimately, death,” added Tufton.

“One of the biggest challenges we face in public health today is to get Jamaicans to come to terms with their role in preserving themselves ... and to restore credibility to our primary healthcare infrastructure so that the person who lives down the road doesn’t take a taxi and drive past the clinic to go to the Cornwall Regional Hospital but stops at the clinic first,” said Tufton.