By Eulalee Thompson, Staff Reporter 
The National Health Fund (NHF) will have far-reaching impact Dr. Winston Davidson, past president, Medical Association of Jamaica.
ON WEDNESDAY, July 15, 1997: Dr. Winston Davidson, then chairing a doctor health insurance review task force, said at a press conference in Kingston, that the National Health Insurance Plan (NHIP) was biased toward tertiary (hospital) care and would essentially be paying for the use of government hospital beds.
In his characteristic strident fashion, he said then, "Now, if it is such a scheme, the government should just come out and say so...if it is a taxation, come out and say so and the Jamaican people must come out and take a stand."
Fast forward to today and it is a different picture; he now says, "This is a fund that is unique in the sense that it was created out of our unique and peculiar circumstances in our health services. I don't know of any health fund that has the scope of coverage, in the way it does and the kind of funding arrangement."
Admittedly, he is now speaking about a revamped publicly-funded health insurance scheme the National Health Fund (NHF) often referred to as a watered-down version of the NHIP.
The NHIP, outlined in Green Paper (April 1997) was a mandatory national health scheme which proposed a Standard Benefit Package consisting of specified hospital in-patient services, laboratory, diagnostic tests and pharmaceuticals. The focus on secondary and tertiary care, instead of primary care, medical doctors said then was "conceptually flawed". It was also extremely expensive to underwrite.
Diseases covered
Disease Prevalence
Arthritis 278,500
Asthma 229,000
Cancer
(breast & prostate) 4,800
Diabetes 145,500
Epilepsy 29,800
Glaucoma 21,500
High cholesterol 62,800
Hypertension 422,000
Ischaemic
(heart disease) 15,000
Major Depression 186,800
Psychosis 20,000
Rheumatic Fever
(heart disease) 4,300
Vascular 26,100
10 leading
causes of death
in Jamaica 2000
Causes of deaths Total
Cerebrovascular
disease 1,957
Diabetes mellitus 1,568
Other heart diseases 922
Hypertensive diseases 895
Ischaemic
heart disease 879
All other external
causes 622
Malignant neoplasm
of prostate 515
Human
immunodeficiency
virus (HIV) 465
Pnuemonia 388
Chronic lower
respiratory infections 375
Remainder of malignant
neoplasms 322
Malignant neoplasm
of trachea, bronchus
and lung 331
Malignant neoplasm
of breast 235
Malignant neoplasm
of cervix uteri 141
Source: Registrar General's Department
