The Health Min­istry has an in­creased al­lo­ca­tion in 2024 for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and non-phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals in­clud­ing Chron­ic Dis­ease As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (CDAP) drugs. The min­istry is al­so do­ing a study on the lev­el of COVID-19 im­mu­ni­ty in the pub­lic.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh spoke about this in yes­ter­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing in Par­lia­ment. He was ques­tioned on the Health Min­istry’s $6 bil­lion al­lo­ca­tion by Op­po­si­tion MPs Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, Dr Rishi Seecher­an and Dr Rai Rag­bir.

Deyals­ingh con­firmed the min­istry’s al­lo­ca­tion was in­creased in 2024 for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and non-phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals in­clud­ing CDAP and on­col­o­gy drugs, flu vac­cines and HIV test kits.

He said af­ter the cur­rent use of the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal for COVID pa­tients, it will be opened to the gen­er­al pub­lic and UWI will be charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the fa­cil­i­ty. He did not give a date for the tran­si­tion.

He said there were 1,491 car­diac pa­tients in the pub­lic sec­tor in 2023 and in 2024 there will be a rollover of 58 pa­tients.

Deyals­ingh guar­an­teed that a de­creased al­lo­ca­tion for the South West Re­gion­al Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) will not af­fect the qual­i­ty of ser­vice de­liv­ery and part of the fund­ing will cov­er SWRHA staff short­ages. Al­lo­ca­tion change is part of re­set­ting. He added, that any short­fall will be catered for in the Mid-Year Bud­get re­view or via vire­ment be­tween de­part­ment heads.

Deyals­ingh said San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal -like oth­ers- will get at­ten­tion in­clud­ing re­vamped grounds and re­ten­tion of old build­ings that are us­able. A $139m de­crease in North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) fund­ing for 2024 will oc­cur as its al­lo­ca­tion is al­so be­ing re­set to 2023 lev­els, but there would be in­creased goods and ser­vices.

On fund­ing for the wait­ing list of pa­tients re­quir­ing care at pri­vate sec­tor fa­cil­i­ties, Deyals­ingh said the min­istry is do­ing less such out­sourc­ing as it in­creas­es its fa­cil­i­ties. He as­sured no one will be dis­ad­van­taged.

An es­ti­mat­ed $11.3m is out­stand­ing to pri­vate providers of re­nal dial­y­sis ser­vice. Deyals­ingh who as­sured the pri­vate sec­tor is pro­vid­ing good ser­vice, said the min­istry sends out per­son­nel to do fi­nan­cial, clin­i­cal and oth­er au­dits to en­sure best prac­tice is used.