As Jamaica marks two years to the day the island recorded its first case of the coronavirus (COVID-19), Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton says lessons learned from the pandemic have provided the Government with a blueprint for the handling of future crises.

Despite the unprecedented times that the COVID-19 pandemic heralded worldwide and more specifically in Jamaica, Tufton in an interview with Our Today on Thursday (March 10) informed that the experience has allowed for an increase in the country’s preparedness for future public health emergencies.

He noted: “I think after two years of going into surges and peaks, we would have learned how the virus works through practical experience.”

“We would have learned the methods that have been used to control both clinical and non-clinical whether it’s mask-wearing or vaccinations (and) how to structure and rearrange our hospital arrangements to support treatment.”

These lessons according to the health minister can be used as a template to enhance the country’s emergency response in the event of future crises.

Beyond this, however, Tufton shared with Our Today that the pandemic provided an opportunity for a review of how various aspects of the public sector worked and what needed to be adjusted to manage the immediate crisis as well as for the future.

To this end, he explained: “For example, we recognise the importance of having the primary health care system functional to community engagement and the right size for reaching out. (As a result) We have added nearly 1,400 community health aides, which we will now examine to determine, in reviewing primary health care, to arrange in a more permanent way a percentage of them to operate as critical points of contact for community-based health care…”.

While hopeful that the country would not soon experience yet another public health emergency, the health minister expressed confidence that Jamaica would be far more prepared today than it was at the beginning of the pandemic.

“Assuming that there is a need to respond to a public health emergency, the truth is we are far more experienced as a public health team and as a country to be able to respond in several ways,” said Tufton.

He stated: “We have more beds in the hospital system, we have more ventilators, we have more personnel at the primary level. We have plans to expand further infrastructure and the practical training that we acquired from the treatment (of patients with COVID) would’ve made us more experienced and exposed to dealing with emergencies.”

Additionally, the minister explained that the pandemic highlighted the benefit of partnerships with various stakeholders including the private sector, the church, and multilateral organisations which showed that “in a crisis, all hands on deck is the most effective strategy”.