Health Minister describes Jackson Memorial Hospital visit as extensive but worthwhile
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(L-R) Minister of Health on Nevis Hon. Hensley Daniel, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health Mrs Joclyn Liburd and Chief Medical Officer at the Alexandra Hospital on Nevis Dr. Cordell Rawlins during the press briefing at the Red Cross Conference Room in Charlestown.
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CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (OCTOBER 24, 2007) -- Minister of Health on Nevis Hon. Hensley Daniel described a two-day visit to the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Florida on October 18-19, 2007, as extensive but worthwhile. He made the observation on his return to the island at a press briefing on Monday October 22, 2007, at the Red Cross Conference Room in Charlestown.
The Minister was accompanied by Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health Mrs. Joclyn Liburd and Chief Medical Officer at the Alexandra Hospital, Surgeon Dr. Cordell Rawlins. The team’s visit was facilitated through an invitation and financed by the Jackson Memorial International Health Services Foundation.
“Arising from our deliberations at the Health Conference here in Nevis earlier this year, we sought to concretise affiliation arrangements, to concretise collaboration with other stakeholders in the Ministry of Health and as such we journeyed to Florida last week to firm up some of those arrangements and to see what in their operations we could select to help us to better manage our health services in Nevis.
“We discussed the possible affiliation with the Jackson Memorial Hospital, the possibility of them becoming a tertiary referral centre which would include cardiac care for patients including 24 hour monitoring,” the Minister explained.
Mr. Daniel noted too, that the issue of health care financing was brought into sharp focus with regard to the transfer of emergency patients, diagnostic services for cardiac patients, cardiac surgery and the establishment of the National Health Insurance Policy Scheme on Nevis. ~~Adz:Right~~
The policy he said would seek to insure all on the island by means of payroll deduction. It would reduce the added burden of soliciting funds for overseas and local medical attention would become a non issue.
The Health Minister said the team used the opportunity to engage persons with a range of expertise in the management of health insurance policy, re insurers and the utilisation and cost of medical services and the availability of current health information.
The visit also involved discussions with persons who ran the Foundation which was set up to raise money for special areas of health. It was Mr. Daniel’s view that Nevis already had the makings of a similar institution.
“We believe we have the makings already in Nevis for the establishment of an Alexandra Hospital Foundation because we have the Alexandra Hospital Auxiliary and they already have an account which is used by persons wanting to make direct contributions to the Hospital.
“So we believe we have the basis for the establishment of a foundation which would ensure that we can continue to raise money. So it was very important for us to discuss with the chairperson of the Jackson Memorial Foundation and he was quite willing to share his experiences. My two colleagues in the Ministry have already put together the names of people who can contribute. So we are going to explore the possibilities and implement that very quickly,” he said.
The Minister also referred to a company involved in health care that the Administration could work with in its crusade to provide quality health care for all of Nevis.
~~Adz:Left~~ “There is a company which manages health care it is called Olympus which tracks utilisation and the cost of health services and they specialise in tertiary health services and interestingly they want to facilitate the increase use of transplants. We have not had any transplants in Nevis but working with them they are sharing with us how we can [facilitate] some kidney transplants at significantly reduced costs by them using their various hospitals and care managers throughout the region.
“They work with centres of excellence in various countries and we think by working with them we would be able to coordinate and deliver quality care to persons in Nevis. We believe we can work with them to reduce the cost particularly as it relates to persons who have renal failure. If we were to provide a kidney transplant it would result in significantly reduced cost as opposed to putting the person on haemodialysis. So that is something we are going to pursue,” he said.
Meantime, the Health Minister issued a word of advice to insurance companies on Nevis and cited that correct insurance premiums could pass on a significant amount of risk to re insurers abroad. He said during the visit to Florida, the team also met with officials from The Institute of Risk Management (IRM) to discuss re insurance issues and the institute had offered to put together a design for the Administration to look at.
During the visit the team toured a number of facilities at the Hospital which included the Diagnostic Centre, the Trauma Hospital, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the Emergency department, The Breast Centre, Neurology Centre and the Surgical Intensive Care.
