Healthcare System In The Caribbean

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An island that is oozing with great potential by its greatest resource, its people, ought to have top class health care services for all. In Jamaica, however, that is not the case. Health care is free to all citizens and legal residents at government hospitals and clinics, but even with this implication the rural areas of the island have insufficient primary health care services and are not as equipped as those in the urban regions. Martin Luther once said “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."If all people are created equal then everyone should be privy to the same healthcare. It was found that people with the most means, those who need less healthcare, obtain the most care, whereas those with the least means and greatest health problems obtain the least. This sort of marginalization is committed by medical organizations as well as the government. It has resulted in many problems, outcomes of deficient services. A few of the myriad of services are: children’s vaccinations, prevention and treatment of the most frequent children’s infectious diseases, interventions to prevent malnutrition among pregnant women and children under five, and education and health promotion activities. All of which although conducted in the rural area, are not done to the extent to which they would be effective and to the extent to which they are conducted in the urban areas. With this ineffective healthcare system persons of the rural area are now quite dubious of the effectiveness of doctors and now fall back on medicine men of old or ‘bush doctors’. Many Jamaicans are showing a certain faithfulness when it comes to the use of herbs as an alternative to accepted medicine. There are pros and cons in this development. The pros: it would spark interest in traditional medicine, medicine of the herbs. This could lead to research of such herbs and

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