-Health Minister says

THE PPP/C Government has fulfilled all of the promises made for the country’s health sector in its 2020 party manifesto, according to Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony.

Dr Anthony made this declaration, on Friday, during the ministry’s end-of-year press conference.

He said: “When we came to government, we were guided by the manifesto and in the manifesto we had about seven things that the PPP had promised that we would complete in five years in office. I can say to you that I went back and I looked at those seven things that were promised and we have already achieved all of those things.”

One of the first things that the PPP/C was interested in was increasing the amount of pharmaceuticals in the system. Against this backdrop, Minister Anthony said that when they entered office, the levels of pharmaceutical stock stood at about 35 per cent and there was a lot of expired drugs.

This has been fixed, the minister said before indicating that the stock level has risen to 92 per cent countrywide.

Additionally, there was major progress in the increase of remuneration for health sector workers.

As of 2022, that has been done for all categories of staff ranging from nurses and doctors to community healthcare workers.

Further to this, they have also improved performance monitoring and as such have introduced service level contracts for all regions.

Added to this, he said that the government promised to provide incentives to the private sector to enable them to upgrade their facilities. According to the minister, a number of private sector entities and hospitals have made additions to their equipment stock.

Further to this, a promise was made to upgrade medical facilities and a lot of work has been done in this area.
Another promise that government has delivered was giving doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers, the option of being on the pensionable establishment or on contract. This, he said was a major issue and this was promptly looked at when government took office in 2020.

“So when we look at our accomplishments against what we promised in our manifesto, we have accomplished all the things that we have had in the manifesto. So, a lot of what we are doing is really beyond what we promised in our manifesto,” he added.