Health Minister Presses Personal Responsibility as SERHA Receives New Fleet

Health and Wellness Minister Dr. the Hon. Christopher Tufton has called on Jamaicans to leverage whatever sway they hold to advance healthier living and accept greater ownership of their own wellbeing.

“We must use our platforms, we must use our community-based organisations, we must use other places where we have even a small dose of influence… to help to influence this theme of personal responsibility,” he said.

The remarks came on July 3 at the National Chest Hospital in Kingston, where five new vehicles were handed over to the South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA).

Dr. Tufton said the administration keeps putting resources into building up public care, yet citizens still need to do their share by choosing healthier habits.

“We have to start seeing health, first and foremost, as a matter of personal responsibility,” the Minister said.

He pointed out that poor lifestyle patterns frequently feed chronic disease, which then piles more demand onto hospitals and clinics.

“Because if we live in a way that technically, in practice and in theory, abuses ourselves… by the lack of rest, lack of exercise, the foods that we eat… if we do not take care of ourselves, we are going to ultimately demand the health service long before we really should demand it,” he cautioned.

Many non-communicable conditions, he stressed, track closely with everyday choices.

“Hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers, and I could go on, are normally… not all the time… the result of our own decisions around salts, sugars, fats, alcohol, tobacco, lack of rest, and lack of exercise,” Dr. Tufton said.

He also appealed to churches and other faith communities to step up their advocacy for healthy living.

“I am calling on the faith-based organisations, the churches… to use the platform to preach personal responsibility about personal health as much as we use the platform to preach about the life after,” he said.

Dr. Tufton also pointed to the Government’s Social Determinants of Health programme — the Community Arranged Response Efforts (CARE) Fund — which backs community-based groups that run projects promoting healthier lifestyles.