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Thursday, May 3, 2007 – Minister for Health Honourable Stephenson King
has called for the nationwide implementation of the National Health Development
Strategy. He said the programme when introduced will depend on an efficient
networking system that supports the delivery of a range of health services. The
key agents of the network would be hospitals, poly-clinics and health centres.
“So while you have two hospitals, one in the north and one in the south, the
intention is to establish four poly-clinics. One at Gros Islet - the pilot
project, one in Soufriere, one in Dennery and one in Castries, so that you have
a network of health facilities providing a range of services from primary to
tertiary throughout the island.”
To accomplish this feat the minister says the Ministry of Health has to revamp
its approach and introduce fresh strategies.
“The Ministry of Health must change its own approach, its role must change. At
this time the Ministry of Health is engaged in managing hospitals, engaged in
managing health centres. So now we are saying that the Ministry of Health must
now change its approach and become a regulatory body of statutorized hospitals
giving them a level of autonomy that will allow them to provide the services to
our people.”
Those new programmes he says, demand additional finances for the health sector,
additional human resources, increased training opportunities and the
introduction of retention strategies to respond adequately to the human resource
demand and supply issues of the health sector.
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