Contracts amounting to a total of €1,792,943.69 or close to J$243 million have been awarded as part of the Programme for the Reduction of Maternal and Child Mortality (PROMAC) under which Jamaica was allocated a total of €22 million or about J$3 billion by the European Union.
This was disclosed by Minister of Health, Dr. Fenton Ferguson at a press briefing held at the Office of the Prime Minister this morning (Tuesday, October 20, 2015). “I want to thank the EU which has really been very invested in and dedicated to this project. They are a key partner in enhancing health care and have provided the biggest grant ever to the sector,” he said.
This comes as the Government seeks to expand neonatal and maternal care services to improve the quality of care given to the premature infant and high risk pregnant women. The objectives of PROMAC include reducing the incidence of neonatal deaths due to inadequate access to high dependency care and reducing the incidence of maternal deaths due to inadequate access to emergency obstetric care.
“Under PROMAC we expect to have true state of the art neonatal and maternal High Dependency Units (HDUs) within the next three years. The programme also provides for training for the staff who will be working in these areas,” Dr. Ferguson said.
The contracts have been awarded as follows:
- €200,000 or a little over J$27 million for design services for the maternal and neonatal HDUs at Victoria Jubilee, Mandeville Regional and Cornwall Regional Hospitals.
- €270,000 – J$36.5 million for Bustamante Hospital for Children, Spanish Town and St. Ann’s Bay Regional Hospitals.
- €491,000 – J$66.4 million for equipment for Mandeville Regional Hospital’s neonatal HDU and
- €99,943.69 – J$13.52 million for testing equipment for HDUs
- € 100,000 – J$13.53 million for design services for 4 primary care centres – Savanna-La-Mar, St. Jago Park, Mandeville, Comprehensive and Annotto Bay Health Centres and two (2) community hospitals – Alexandria and Chapelton.
- €632,000 – J$85.5 million for the purchase of six (6)
The Ministry will be hosting an official contract signing on November 3, 2015. “We are also making the necessary arrangements to procure equipment for ten remaining HDUs at a cost of €2.65million or J$358.5 million,” Dr. Ferguson said.
This component of the project seeks to create a total of 45 beds in neonatal high dependency units at the Cornwall Regional, Mandeville Regional, St. Ann’s Bay Regional, Spanish Town and the Victoria Jubilee Hospitals as well as the Bustamante Hospital for Children.
It also seeks to increase the capacity of obstetric HDUs in the four (4) referral regional hospitals and Victoria Jubilee hospital for a total of twenty three (23) beds. Additionally the proposal includes the rehabilitation of the entire delivery area and the maternal-fetal clinic of Victoria Jubilee hospital.