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KINGSTON, Jamaica. Wednesday, May 29, 2024: Jamaica has urged the
support of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to bolster, through sharing
across jurisdictions, its human resources for health.
“Jamaica is moving to address some of the ‘push’ factors that cause our health
care workers to migrate, including modernising infrastructure and implementing
an electronic health records system,” said Minister of Health & Wellness, Dr. the
Hon. Christopher Tufton, addressing the 77 th session of the World Health
Assembly earlier this week.
“We are also increasing the pool of workers by enhancing training opportunities. I
recently announced a 2.5 billion Jamaican dollars scholarship programme to train
health care workers. The Government is also carrying out a review of
remuneration for public sector workers, in an effort to retain persons in the
service,” he added.
Yet, even with these interventions, the Minister told world leaders, Jamaica is
“fighting to compete with the pull factors from other countries”.

To solve the problem, Dr. Tufton said ways need to be found to share human
resources.

“We call upon the WHO to strengthen its efforts to help small countries develop
resilience through forging partnerships with training institutions, accreditation
bodies, clinical training sites across borders to allow for sharing of training and
trainers that will expand the numbers trained in small countries to satisfy the
needs of these countries and others,” the Minister said.
According to Dr. Tufton, the human resources for health constraints faced by
small island developing states (SIDS), including Jamaica, are threatening to
erode the gains made.
“Creative solutions must be identified. Achieving ‘Health for All’ requires ‘all
hands on deck’ to solve this decades-old problem that continues to stymie our
efforts to rehabilitate our health systems,” he insisted.
“Jamaica calls for the help of the WHO in this matter as we remain committed to
achieving health for all,” the Minister added.