deCastro questions if new health care scheme covers herbalists
Speaking recently on his talk show programme “Straight Talk” deCastro said he heard in the news the Health Minister talking about the upcoming health insurance and insurance companies to submit proposals.
“...but I want to know if people like myself and others who don’t believe in drugs and don’t want to put drugs in our bodies, are we going to have some kind of protection when we want to go to a herbalist or a naturalist to take care of us. Are we going to be discriminated against?” he asked.
“I don’t put drugs in my body and I am going to outlive a lot of them that do that,” the talk show host added.
Meanwhile, in an interview with the Hon. Ronnie Skelton, the Health Minister, in February 2012, he had stated that the scheme could be implemented within the next 12 months with Government expected to fork up some $38M on an annual basis to subsidise it.
“You know health care is a very expensive operation and there is no country in the world that it is not subsidised, so Government will have to play its part in subsiding the scheme and depends on what scheme is taken up – full or partial – we will go to the full scheme that is somewhere like around 38 million dollars on an annual basis,” Hon. Skelton had disclosed.
Asked if that is a hefty sum amidst the economic difficulties, the Health Minister had responded, “We are doing that now, it sounds like a lot of money but we are pumping that level of money into health care right now. So it is not something that Government can’t do, you will just have an insurance company now where the monies is funnelled through.”
The ball was set in motion for the scheme in March 2010 when Dancia Penn QC, the then former Minister for Health, had signed an agreement with the University of the West Indies to perform professional consulting services to design and support the implementation of a NHIS.
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