Jamaica poised to sign MOU for health simulation training centre
Published:Saturday | January 18, 2025 | 12:06 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton says healthcare representatives from Hartford, Connecticut will be visiting Jamaica next week regarding a potential memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the creation of a health simulation training centre in Montego Bay, St James.
Tufton made the announcement while speaking to journalists on Thursday following the official opening of the revamped Green Pond Health Centre in Green Pond, St James, which provides service to 13,000 patients annually.
“Next week, a delegation is coming from the Hartford Health Centre in Hartford, Connecticut, where I went late last year to try to get them to collaborate with us around an MOU to establish a simulation centre in Montego Bay, as part of the Global Health Initiative,” said Tufton. “A simulation centre is a high-tech centre where people can train on mannequins, basically, computerised people, as opposed to real people.
“We are trying to set up a simulation centre in conjunction with The University of the West Indies, under the Global Health Initiative, in Montego Bay, as part of bolstering training for doctors, nurses, and so on.”
Tufton further noted that the visiting team will make stops in Kingston and Montego Bay.
Discussions were previously held between The UWI and the Hartford Health Centre in August 2023, for the construction of a US$1-million robotics training centre at the UWI’s Faculty of Medical Sciences. Last November, it was announced that a team from the Hartford Healthcare Corporation would visit Jamaica before the end of 2024 for a comprehensive assessment of the country’s training needs.
In addition to the team from Connecticut, teams from Cuba, Nigeria, and The Philippines will also be involved in health initiatives with Jamaica.
“We are going to have a job fair in Kingston and, in the paper, you will see almost 800 openings in public health across the country. What we are doing is collaborating with other countries like Cuba and Nigeria, plus the minister of health from The Philippines is coming in on Monday (January 20) and he will be my special guest at the job fair,” said Tufton.
“We will sign an MOU for collaboration around training, and collaboration around support for our hospital system, which could possibly include nationals from The Philippines coming to Jamaica. Once we exhaust all the possibilities here and expand the training, where there are still gaps, we may have to look to how we collaborate around inflows, or inward migration [of healthcare experts], as opposed to people leaving,” the minister added.
Additionally, Tufton noted that some 1,000 staff positions are expected to be made available at the Mt Salem-based Western Children and Adolescent Hospital, whose construction is scheduled for completion by June this year.