Establishment of single Caribbean health agency agreed
THE establishment of a single public health agency for the Caribbean appears nearer fruition, with a document detailing plans for it, as mandated by CARICOM Heads of Governments in March last year, completed and ready for their signatures.
The vision for the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) is to promote and protect the health of the people from disease, injury and disability.
The projection is that the proposals will be reviewed and signed at the next Heads of Government meeting in July, so that implementation and consolidation can proceed.
It is one of the issues on the agenda for that summit, agreed by the 28th Meeting of the CARICOM Council of Ministers on Wednesday.
The readiness for CARPHA implementation was disclosed by Mr. Karl Hood, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade, Export Development and Environment of Grenada, at a media briefing in the Turkeyen CARICOM Secretariat.
Hood was accompanied by Acting CARICOM Secretary- General, Ambassador Lolita Applewaithe, and Public Relations Adviser, Leonard Robertson.
A CARICOM release explained that CARPHA has come out of a Caribbean Cooperation in Health (CCH) initiative, which was developed within the framework of functional cooperation and adopted by the Health Ministers in 1984.
The aim, then, was to optimise the utilisation of resources, promote technical cooperation among member countries and develop and secure funding for the implementation of projects in priority health areas, a concept promoting collective and collaborative action to solve critical problems in the sector, best addressed through a regional approach, rather than by individual country action.
Over the years, special efforts were made to promote partnerships with national, regional and international agencies to secure additional resources for the collective programmes and, in the process, Pan American Health Organisation, the Americas Regional Office of the World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO), has been the major partner and provided technical and financial resources.
In 2002, in line with the CCH priorities, the release said, the 15 CARICOM Heads of Government mandated the Secretariat to begin a review of the five Regional Health Institutions (RHIs), namely the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC), the Caribbean Food and Nutrition Institute (CFNI), the Caribbean Environmental Health Institute (CEHI), the Caribbean Regional Drug Testing Laboratory (CRDTL) and the Caribbean Health Research Council (CHRC), to determine how they could better serve the health needs of the Region.
This review, through a systematic evaluation and options analysis, explored the roles of the five existing RHIs and looked at how the health needs of the Region could be better met.
Three options were considered, with members identifying the development of a single public health agency for the Caribbean as the best way forward.
That was agreed by CARICOM Ministers in 2007 and, with the support of PAHO, a steering committee and project management team were created to develop and implement plans for the establishment of the CARPHA and the Heads of Government approved them for implementation on March 12, 2010.
Hood said the completion of the CARPHA implementation plans was a significant development within CARICOM, but assistance to Haiti, security and issues related to CARIFORUM will also be recommended for discussion and decision by the Heads of Government in July.