Letters & Opinion

People’s Manifesto – Health

Image of John Peters
By John Peters

Every citizen who has experienced a visit to Victoria Hospital will come out with one conclusion; that our health sector is in crisis. Despite billions of dollars spent over the last 20 years, we are in no better position in 2016 as we were in 1996. There has to be a revolutionary thought process involving disruptive transformation in dealing with our health sector. The first approach is to recognize that a functioning health sector is a triune of physical structures, functional equipment and trained staff. It is futile to pursue the construction of new facilities that cannot be commissioned due to the absence of equipment or staff.

While it is laudable that we will soon have a new National Hospital and a St Jude Hospital completed in 2017, the fact remains that the Ministry of Health is not in a position to fully commission both hospitals due to lack of equipment and manpower.

So the revolution begins with the funding of health care in Saint Lucia. We intend to create two Regional Health Authorities, The Northern Regional Health Authority will cover from Canaries on the West Coast to Dennery on the East Coast, and the Southern Regional Health Authority will cover the rest of the island. These regional health authorities will be autonomous. The revolutionary funding approaches are as follows:

A. The health care of all accident victims will be funded by the motor vehicle insurance companies. If you are in a vehicle that is in an accident and you are cared for in a public hospital, then the full cost of that care will be paid by the insurance company. The required legislative framework will be immediately enacted. The payments by the Insurance companies will be directly to the Regional Authority.

B. There will be new legislation that will create financial liability for criminal actions. If someone commits a crime that results in the hospitalization of an individual, then the cost of the health care will be a financial liability of the one convicted of the crime. The legislation will provide for seizure of property in the event of failure to pay by the convicted individual.

C. There will be a Corporate Health Surcharge. Companies that are involved in selected activities that create health related issues will be subjected to a quarterly Corporate Health Surcharge. The companies involved in the manufacturing and importation of soft drinks, alcoholic beverages and tobacco related products, will be the first to be subjected to the Corporate Health Surcharge. This quarterly payment will be directly to the Regional Health Authority.

D. The National Insurance Corporation will also be a source of funding. Any contributor to the National Insurance can use part of their accumulated funds to pay for health care. The National Insurance Corporation will advise their clients on the resultant reduction in benefits.

We believe the new injection of funds from these sources will be a major factor in the improvement of health care in Saint Lucia.

The second component relates to the ramping up of the training of staff for the health sector. We propose to convert the Victoria Hospital into a major nursing school. The intent is to have a facility that can have an enrolment of 1500 students per year. We will be working with a major offshore nursing school, where the government will provide the building and furnishing, with an arrangement for free tuition of 500 students per year. This new Medical Educational Facility will cater for the following major disciplines:
• Nursing
• Health Administration
• Health Informatics

We intend to create an environment where Saint Lucia is viewed as a regional powerhouse in the health sector. We will have our nursing staff at our hospitals at full capacity and be able to export our services within the region and internationally. The intent is to also have some of our retired nurses to be involved in the teaching within the new facility.

Health administration is a specialized field and one of the gaps in our health sector is the absence of trained persons in Health Administration. There will be a deliberate attempt to train professionals in Health Care Management, Health Administration, Health Policy and Research, Public Health and Health Informatics. We are creating new career paths for our young population. This new administration will ensure that our Primary Health Care Policy is evidence –based and thus decisions are centred on robust data analysis. We will create a Healthy Saint Lucia.

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