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| Dr. the Honorable Christopher Tufton, MP Minister of Health and Wellness Photo courtesy of the Jamaica Information Service (JIS) |
Minister Tufton also revealed that the scholarship would be open to undergraduate students currently enrolled in universities and is also open to students at the graduate and post graduate levels. The programme begins September 2024 and the Health Ministry will give further details as the time approaches for applications.
According to the Minister the aim of the scholarship is to ensure that as the Government seeks to transform and build out the health system infrastructure so that there are adequate, well trained medical professionals available to do the level of work required to meet the needs of the Jamaican people.
"Unfortunately, we can’t just recruit; we have to now take a vested interest in training and retaining. And so, what the ministry is saying [is] we can’t build hospitals and have nobody to put in them — and that is likely to happen; it happens in other jurisdictions. We can’t be buying diagnostic equipment, digitizing, and have no one to operate them. We can’t not have people who can do the analytics — in other words, take the data and analyse it (health economics) in order to tailor our response to the population. And so this scholarship is intended to solve that problem," he said.
Additionally, the Health Minister revealed that the government would be willing to explore the possibility of flexi-contract arrangements for professionals trained jointly across jurisdictions and institutions outside of Jamaica. So for example, a Jamaican doctor trained and/or working in a foreign country would be offered the opportunity to work in Jamaica part-time while working and living overseas.
"We take the view that we have experience as a country in Jamaicans working part-time in the developed markets and part-time in Jamaica. Why can’t we do it for a nurse? In other words, if we could establish a flexi contract where a nurse could work five months in the United Kingdom [UK] at a hospital and seven months in Jamaica, the Government should be prepared to give them a contract for the seven-month period so that they enjoy the best of both worlds. Because I do believe that most Jamaicans would prefer to reside here, but if they can earn a little extra money somewhere else, they will do it on a part-time basis and then come back home — and we’re going to be exploring that," Minister Tufton said.
The announcement was also posted on the Prime Minister Andrew Holness's X (Twitter) account on May 8.
In a brief video shared by the PM, Dr. Tufton stated:
"Alright, so a major announcement by the Ministry of Health and Wellness, 2.5 billion dollar scholarship fund; $500 million a year for the next five years to provide Jamaican like you an opportunity to study an area of public health whether it is in the clinical area - a nurse, a doctor, or health information systems or health care management. All aimed at giving an opportunity for Jamaicans would like to study in this area, but very importantly also to ensure that as we build hospitals and improve and expand the services, we have the people to provide the care for Jamaicans who need it. It's a big deal, and it's part of the transformation that we're trying to achieve as a government."
These are the areas of study that will be covered under the scholarship:
- Nursing
- Medicine
- Public Health
- Medical Technology
- Epidemiology
- Health Records Management
- Hospital/Health Care Management
- Information Systems for Health
- Pharmacy
- Dentistry
- Health Economics
This move is in a bid to be competitive with job markets such as the United States who are actively recruiting Jamaica's health care professionals. Records show that in 2022, more than 700 nurses left Jamaican shores to pursue a career elsewhere. The government hopes the new scholarship and the flexi-contract initiative will retain more of the island's health care professionals.
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