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NHI: ‘Potent Social Initiative and Instrument of Change’
By Matt Maura
Aug 11, 2016 - 11:09:10 AM

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NASSAU, The Bahamas – The Bahamas has made remarkable progress in improving the health of its people over the past 30 years, but those gains cannot be taken for granted, nor can the country become complacent in protecting those achievements.

“Because health, like education, always has an unfinished agenda,” Minister of Health the Hon. Dr. Michael Perry Gomez told Parliament Wednesday. “There are old battles that have to be fought and new challenges, pressures and dilemmas to confront.”

These include new threats from infectious diseases such as Zika and tackling the root causes and social determinants of ill-health, as is largely reflected in the high dominance of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart problems, high blood pressure and stroke as well as the high incidence of accidents and trauma cases.

Finding the resources to maintain and improve investment in facilities, procuring equipment, drugs and technologies, installing regulatory framework, securing the skilled personnel needed to meet the increasing and complex health needs of the population, and ensuring the further reduction in the country’s “still unacceptably high infant and maternal mortality rates are among some of the newer challenges that must be faced.

“More importantly perhaps the most critical challenge to confront is in finding the mechanism for more equitable sharing of the burden of health costs and the benefits of health by all segments of the population rather than by the few who are privileged to have the means to pay for their care,” Dr. Gomez said.

“One of the cornerstones of the NHI Bill is to reduce inequality in access to healthcare services and to ensure that all Bahamians have an equal right to healthcare services and to achieving the highest quality care.

“As Minister of Health, I come face-to-face everyday with brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, children, the poor as well as the not-so-poor needing assistance in meeting their health bills, or access to financing, so that they an even receive health services which are not available in the public sector.

“While others may treat these cases with a sense of detachment, I cannot. This Government cannot, and all progressive thinking Bahamians cannot. I unequivocally and passionately believe that we have an obligation to those less fortunate; and to those whose sense of obligation extends to temporary assistance, I want to state emphatically that as helpful and unselfish as they may be, one cannot manage a modern health system on the basis of gifts, charity and donations.”

Dr. Gomez said it is in this context that NHI, as a financing mechanism, becomes such a “potent social initiative and instrument of change.”

He said during the first phase, officials will re-direct money currently allocated to less efficient modes of health delivery to the provision of primary healthcare services in both the private and public sectors.

“We will ensure that individuals who currently put off taking chronic disease medications for lack of payment are able to access them and hence keep them out of hospital – for example, with diabetic complications.

“By opening up access to private primary care facilities to Bahamians previously unable to afford their services, we will be able to reduce wait times in our overburdened public clinics, allowing a working mother the opportunity to take less time off from work and access care for their sick child when they need it – not waiting until late at night and accessing care through the more expensive emergency room.”

Dr. Gomez said every well-developed and progressive society recognizes that good health within the population is the bedrock of a cohesive and resilient society.

“(It is) a vital resource; a precondition for the creation and enjoyment of wealth and for individual advancement, business advancement and indeed national advancement. Indeed there is compelling international evidence that investing in our health will truly be an investment in our Commonwealth (as) better health produces a strong labour force; increases workforce productivity by reducing incapacity, debility and the number of days lost to sick leave.

“Good health also reduces the cost to business due to sick leave; financial stress on the family (and) the financial burden on the public purse (while) increasing the opportunities Bahamians have for obtaining better paid work; growing the economy thereby increasing gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita income.

“When viewed in the context of all of the major developments and the plans for future developments in The Bahamas, we need a healthy population to take advantage of the opportunities being created,” Dr. Gomez added.



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