Jamaica Targets Major Public Cancer Care Expansion With IAEA Backing

Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton has signalled that the Government is preparing a broad push to strengthen cancer treatment and screening across Jamaica.

Addressing reporters after a critical engagement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Tufton said the agency will send a technical team to the island. That group will examine how Jamaica can grow its cancer-care footprint, including the procurement of new equipment and the possible siting of a treatment facility in central Jamaica.

The Minister said officials are also focused on widening cancer and breast-cancer screening, especially mammography, which has been largely absent from the public health system. The Ministry aims to roll out screening at six additional hospitals or more, while studying whether recently expanded health centres can deliver these services at the primary-care level.

"We want to see more than a doubling of capacity of both cancer treatment and cancer screening in the public system, and the IAEA would be helping us with that," Tufton said.

He added that talks are under way on training and building human-resource strength.

"The machines have to be managed by people and we are limited in that regard, so we are trying to work out a programme with them in conjunction with the University of the West Indies or any other institution for training more Jamaicans, or accessing better human resource capacity," he said.