Ministry chipping away at COVID surgery backlog
Tufton wants more private hospitals joining Code Care
Published:Monday | November 7, 2022 | 12:07 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
WITH 101 outstanding elective surgeries having been done out of an anticipated 2,000 to clear a backlog of cases under the Ministry of Health’s Code Care Programme, Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton is anticipating that up to four more private hospitals will soon join the healthcare initiative.
Tufton made the declaration during last Friday’s press briefing at the Hospiten Montego Bay medical facility in St James, one of several private medical centres in western Jamaica that have come on board in the programme, for which $1.3 billion has been budgeted.
“It is still a far cry from the 2,000 surgeries that we want to do to clear up the backlog, but it is an indication that the process has started and that it has started reasonably well,” Tufton told the briefing.
“As of now we are attempting to sign, in Kingston, similar memorandums of understanding (MOU) to what we have done with the private entities here in Montego Bay. There are three or four private hospitals that we are now having conversations with, to include the University Hospital of the West Indies and the Heart Institute of the Caribbean, and those discussions, we hope, will lead to signing similar MOUs to what we have done over here,” Tufton added.
In September, the Ministry of Health signed agreements with Hospiten Montego Bay, GWest Medical and Surgery Centre, Baywest Wellness Clinic, and Montego Bay Hospital and Urology Centre to take on several delayed surgeries to ease pressure on the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH).
The elective surgeries, which included 220 hernia treatments, 250 prostate cancer interventions, and 120 hysterectomy procedures, had been delayed from as far back as March 2020 because of the increased number of COVID-19 cases, which took priority during the height of the global pandemic.
Tufton noted that once the agreements with the selected hospitals in Kingston are finalised, arrangements will be made for patients on the elective surgery waiting list at the Spanish Town Hospital to be transferred to those facilities.
“I have asked Dr Jacqueline Wright-James, the senior medical officer at the Spanish Town Hospital, to be the coordinator over there, as I have asked Dr Delroy Fray to be the coordinator here in the western region,” said Tufton.
“We will pull a fair bit of that list from the Spanish Town Hospital, where we have a very long waiting list, and other hospitals in the Corporate Area and beyond. I am hoping over the next week or two to sign those MOUs, which means we would have maybe six or seven private entities on board as we seek to ratchet up the numbers for these surgeries.”
In the meantime, Fray recommended that the Code Care Programme’s projected timeline be extended to provide more patients a chance to get elective surgeries done.
“This is an initiative that is going to help people who would not be able to access their surgery otherwise, and with the reviews we have been having, it is enormous. It is going to go down in history as one of the best things for the public-sector initiative for care for our patients in Jamaica,” Fray said.