By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

HEALTH Minister Dr Perry Gomez on Friday said the Christie administration is "committed" to ensuring the equitable distribution of health services in the country, which he claimed "is another step towards achieving universal healthcare in the Bahamas".

Dr Gomez, addressing a seminar on 'Health Equity in the Bahamas' hosted by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and World Health Organisation (WHO) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, said the reduction of health inequity in the Bahamas is crucial towards the eventual implementation of National Health Insurance (NHI). 

Dr Gomez also said reducing health inequity is critical to "ensuring the equitable distribution of health services within the population as a whole".

As such, he said Friday's seminar, which highlighted the second of a two-day workshop, is a "sentinel moment" for the government, as he said one of its core goals is "ensuring that the health system's strengthening programmes and policies make a significant improvement of the health and wellbeing of all citizens and residents of the Bahamas".

"The socio-economic and political context in a country influences the social determinants of health, which in turn influences how equitable health and wellbeing is distributed amongst the population," Dr Gomez said. "Health inequities manifest itself in the unequal way health services are accessed by people from different backgrounds, including income levels, race, ethnicity and gender, resulting in differences in health outcomes. 

"As we move towards strengthening the health system, and improving governance in the health care sector, and achieving universal health coverage, through the implementation of national health insurance, it is important to identify the health and equality gaps and gradients which exist across the socio-economic spectrum in the Bahamas and to target policies and inter sectorial programmes to address health inequities where they exist."

Dr Gomez acknowledged that to date there has been "limited research" done in the Bahamas on the existence of health inequities. However, he said the results of the data analysis which were discussed during the two-day workshop summarise the "conceptual framework of inequity and inequality," describe how the social determinants of health could result in health equity and affect achieving universal health, outline the country's context for the Bahamas by using valid, reliable and existing high quality data sources to identify the existence and magnitude of health inequities in the Bahamas and, subsequently make for conducive discussions potential strategies to address the aforementioned. 

"As such, this health equity report serves as an important baseline and a first step to develop a continuous system to monitor health inequalities with the purpose of informing policies, programmes and practices to reduce differences in health by the unfair and unjust. To reduce health inequity is another step towards achieving universal healthcare in the Bahamas. 

He added: "This is a sentinel moment for my government because equity and equality are important indicators of human development. Indeed this sentinel moment also comes at a pivotal time in the history of the Bahamas as we implement National Health Insurance and thereby providing our citizens with accessible, equitable and high quality healthcare, one of the most significant objectives of this government."