Amid ongoing complaints about the state of infrastructure in the health sector, the Government will, this year, be pumping $1 billion into the establishment of its Health Infrastructure Maintenance Fund (HIMF), through which a range of initiatives are to be established this year with the aim of addressing ongoing concerns about the rundown state of facilities in the health sector as well as tackle the social factors that play a role in determining the poor state of health of large segments of the Jamaican population.

Chief among the initiatives announced by Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton yesterday is the pumping of $1 billion into completing the work needed ahead of full rollout of a new Health Infrastructure Maintenance Fund (HIMF) as well as the establishment of a $500-million Social Determinants of Health CARE Fund, which will focus on 10 specific areas impacting health.

Making his contribution to the 2026-2027 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives yesterday, Tufton said preparatory work on the HIMF had already started under the Health Infrastructure Planning and Project Management Division in the ministry and that former regional director of the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA) St Andrade Sinclair has been shifted to his ministry’s head office to develop this new function.