Dionne Rose
, Staff ReporterTHE MINISTRY of Health will be looking at increasing the subsidies on some drugs that are covered under the National Health Fund (NHF).
Rosemarie Lee, public information officer at the NHF, told The Gleaner, "We will be improving benefits on the ones (drugs) that are low".
Some of the drugs that the increase will affect include metfomine, which is used in the treatment of diabetic patients; enalaperil and atenolol, which are used to treat patients with hypertension and diclofenac that is used in the treatment of arthritis.
While unable to say what the level of increases will be for these drugs and when the increases will be effected, she said that in the coming months the Ministry would disclose this information.
The information officer said that a decision was made to increase the benefits after further assessment of the programme, and now that they have seen how many persons are on the programme they are able to offer more.
PUBLIC EDUCATION DRIVE
Less than eight months into their public education drive to promote the programme, Mrs. Lee said that more persons were now registering for the programme, following calls made by Government Ministers for persons to register for the programme.
Mrs. Lee said that up to the end of last month, 48,000 persons were now on the programme. This had increased from 36,000. However, despite the increase, this is far less than the original projection of over 700,000 that the programme had hoped to target.
"People are signing on slowly, but when you look at persons taking the Jamaica Drugs for the Elderly Programme (JADEP), many of them do not know about NHF and that is for every age group," she said.
Additionally, she said persons might not also know that they have the diseases that are covered under the NHF. The programme covers 14 chronic diseases. They are arthritis, asthma, breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, glaucoma, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, major depression, psychosis, rheumatic fever, heart disease and vascular disease.
Mrs. Lee reported that currently, there were more persons on JADEP with some 85,000 persons from age 50 and over. She added that the programme will be continuing with its public education programme.
The numbers of pharmacies now accepting the NHF cards have also increased from 128 to 177.
