Health Update: Health Update: Saint Lucia: The Ministry Of Health, Wellness And Nutrition Hosts A Stakeholder Consultation On Strengthening Saint Lucia’s Health System Resilience – What Experts Say– What Experts Say.
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The Ministry of Health, Wellness and Nutrition recently convened a Stakeholder Consultation on Health System Resilience in Response to Global Threats at the Bel Jou Hotel Conference Room. The session brought together key health professionals from the Ministry of Health, partners from across the public and private health sectors and civil society to engage in dialogue on how Saint Lucia can best fortify its health infrastructure against current and emerging global threats.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Nutrition, Jenny Daniel, highlighted the importance of collaboration and coordinated engagement of stakeholders to ensure resilience is achieved by the health sector. “I am very pleased to see that we have representation from all sectors, of course, our ministry, primary healthcare services, as well as both hospitals, St. Jude Hospital, Millennium Heights Medical Complex and all the various associations and councils who help us in our drive to ensure that we have the human resources required. Of course, it is important to take stock regularly and to look at what is the contingent of our healthcare service providers, where they emanate from and what our strategies are going to be moving forward, both on a national level and to look beyond our borders if necessary to fulfill the needs that we have.”
A central feature of the session was a presentation delivered by the Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sharon Belmar-George, who emphasized on the significance of this meeting, noting that global health trends highlight the need for a closer look at Saint Lucia’s health workforce. “We’ve been looking at what’s happening in the global picture out there, what’s happening within the region, and we have to ensure that we are prepared to ensure that we have health professionals, from nurses to physicians to laboratory technicians to dentists, within our services. So today it gave us an opportunity to do what we call an audit of our health professionals, look to see where we have gaps, what are the most critical areas, and also discuss strategies to reduce any possible impact when we look at what is happening across the world. So having all of those stakeholders, it gave us an opportunity to sensitize them, and also for us to step back, look at the use of our human resources, and look to see how we could utilize them more efficiently in the provision of care.”
The Ministry of Health, Wellness and Nutrition will review the key outcomes and recommendations from the consultation to help guide the next steps in strengthening Saint Lucia’s health system.
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