PATH beneficiaries to get help under national health fund
NEGRIL, Westmoreland — All Jamaicans who are registered with the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) will automatically benefit from the government’s soon to be implemented national health fund (NHF), according to Senator Floyd Morris.
The Government is to officially launch the NHF next month.
PATH was created last year, to combine and replace benefits that were once individually offered under the Food Stamp, Old Age and Incapacity and Outdoor Relief programmes.
It was piloted in St Catherine but since last December attempts have been made to expand it across the island.
During a recent educational symposium at the Negril community centre, Senator Morris said he would be negotiating with the health ministry to provide PATH beneficiaries with free access to the more than 70 different types of drugs that will be available under the NHF, for the treatment of chronic diseases.
The junior minister in the Ministry of Labour also added that PATH would be one of the avenues used to fulfil the Government’s election year promise to phase out cost sharing at the secondary school level.
Under PATH, he explained, cost sharing would be a thing of the past.
The only stipulation necessary for beneficiaries to take advantage of the programme, the junior minister said, was an 85 per cent attendance rate. All persons over 12 months old who wish to access medical benefits under the NHF, will be required to attend a health clinic twice a year.
Children under a year old will be required to visit the clinic every two months.
The junior minister said that if the country is to move forward, both education and health must be emphasised.
“We can’t progress and prosper as a country if the children are not educated. Education is the means by which our lives will be transformed,” he said.
Under PATH, needy family members are provided with $300 every week in the first year. This will increase to $375 in year two, and $500 in the third year.
Although the programme has been running fairly smooth since its inception, there are isolated complaints. A few beneficiaries at the Negril meeting complained, for example, that there were fewer persons listed as registered beneficiaries than the number of persons who had applied.
But Senator Morris assured them that the discrepancy would be investigated and the necessary adjustments made.
Since the inception of PATH, over 140,000 beneficiaries have received assistance and projections are that at least 235,000 Jamaicans will benefit from the programme by June 2003.