Health Minister: Specialist register coming

Deyalsingh had a meeting last Wednesday with Professor Terence Seemungal, Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies, to discuss the proposal to submit to the Medical Board and Medical Association which had recommended various streams of specialisation.

The medical fraternity has to agree on the proposed MSR but Deyalsingh expressed hope that, working with the ministry, the Medical Board and the Medical Association “can come up with a common sense solution.” Deyalsingh was speaking last Thursday evening during the first of three National Consultations for Healthcare Transformation, in which the ministry is seeking public feedback on the Welch Committee’s recommendations on how to improve the public health sector.

The first consultation took place at St Augustine Secondary School, St Augustine.

The second one will be held this Thursday at Naparima College, San Fernando, starting at 6 pm.

The final consultation will be held in Tobago within one month, at a location to be determined by the Tobago Regional Health Authority.

The call for a MSR came from Dr Garthlyn Pilgrim, a general practitioner with more than 30 years’ experience who is based in the Arouca/Maloney constituency.

Making continuing medical education (CME) compulsory was another of her recommendations that evening. “The public deserves better,” she argued, than doctors not having to update their knowledge/ skills after they complete their internship and are fully registered with the relevant authorities.

“CME should be compulsory and should be tied to the annual registration that is in the law.” Deyalsingh told Pilgrim “there are some legislative hurdles to overcome in the Medical Board Act” if CME is to become compulsory.

“We have had an opinion from the Attorney General (Faris Al-Rawi).

He will be drafting the necessary amendments to do exactly what you are asking to do. We not asleep,” the minister assured.

Pilgrim urged the panel to take into account the fact that “80 percent of our people between the ages of five and 60 are going to private primary health care practitioners.” “We could have 100 functioning health centres, 2,000 functioning health centres. Primary health care will still suffer because we are not addressing where the persons are going...In the public health system, the catchment area is usually below the age of five for immunisations and after the age of 60, when pensions and retirement kick in and they can’t afford private care...So we have to find a way to incorporate our private primary care practitioners into the delivery of health care.” Pilgrim recommended the introduction of a national health scheme modelled after the National Health Service in England, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan in Ontario, Canada or, “what the Scandinavian countries (offer) or even what the insurance companies do in our country; where they have what are called preferred providers.” Deyalsingh said the Health Ministry has “done a lot of work over the last 16 months” on universal health care with Professor Karl Theodore, Director of the Health Economics Unit, UWI who is due to make a presentation to Cabinet on the project.