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Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, has said that plans are being put in place to improve the health sector, with particular emphasis on primary health care services.
Making his presentation in the 2008/09 Budget Debate in the House of Representatives yesterday (April 22), Mr. Golding said that primary health care services have to be strengthened "because too many cases are going to hospital that ought not to be going to hospital."
"We are going to have to expand our primary health care facilities so that more of these cases can be dealt with there, and you reserve your hospital for those cases that require hospital attention," he stated.
The Prime Minister also pointed to plans to purchase the St. Joseph's Hospital in Kingston to allow for the establishment of a trauma centre.
"It is part of a dream that we have to establish specialist hospitals. We want a specialist hospital dealing with cancer, we want a specialist hospital dealing with heart problems, we want one dealing with eye impairments, so that whether you are from Westmoreland or you are from Portland, if you have a cancer problem, we don't have to be trying to treat cancer in 14 hospitals across the country. You go where you have the specialist," he explained.
He noted also that "I want to have regional diagnostic centres so that no matter where you live, you can get to a centre whether it is for the X-ray, the blood tests, whether it is the CAT scan, whatever it is, the diagnostic can be done. The doctors can then decide what sort of treatment you are to get."
Telemedicine technologies will also be introduced, he noted, "so that a doctor can be at Spaulding Hospital (Clarendon) dealing with a complex case, but don't have to send you off to Kingston. He can be on a screen talking to a specialist at the University Hospital, and all the diagnostics can be shared and that specialist at the hospital can be telling the doctor up at Spaulding exactly what to do and exactly what is wrong."
He said that through this "wired medicine" everyone could be brought together through technology.
Making his presentation in the 2008/09 Budget Debate in the House of Representatives yesterday (April 22), Mr. Golding said that primary health care services have to be strengthened "because too many cases are going to hospital that ought not to be going to hospital."
"We are going to have to expand our primary health care facilities so that more of these cases can be dealt with there, and you reserve your hospital for those cases that require hospital attention," he stated.
The Prime Minister also pointed to plans to purchase the St. Joseph's Hospital in Kingston to allow for the establishment of a trauma centre.
"It is part of a dream that we have to establish specialist hospitals. We want a specialist hospital dealing with cancer, we want a specialist hospital dealing with heart problems, we want one dealing with eye impairments, so that whether you are from Westmoreland or you are from Portland, if you have a cancer problem, we don't have to be trying to treat cancer in 14 hospitals across the country. You go where you have the specialist," he explained.
He noted also that "I want to have regional diagnostic centres so that no matter where you live, you can get to a centre whether it is for the X-ray, the blood tests, whether it is the CAT scan, whatever it is, the diagnostic can be done. The doctors can then decide what sort of treatment you are to get."
Telemedicine technologies will also be introduced, he noted, "so that a doctor can be at Spaulding Hospital (Clarendon) dealing with a complex case, but don't have to send you off to Kingston. He can be on a screen talking to a specialist at the University Hospital, and all the diagnostics can be shared and that specialist at the hospital can be telling the doctor up at Spaulding exactly what to do and exactly what is wrong."
He said that through this "wired medicine" everyone could be brought together through technology.
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