1. Jamaica spends US$78 per capita on health care. This ranks 15th of the sixteen (16) English-speaking Caribbean territories.

2. Jamaica’s life expectancy, morbidity and mortality data demonstrates one of the best health patterns in the western hemisphere and compares very favourably with developed countries with much higher per capita health incomes, example, USA - US$4,500 per capita, UK - US$2,200 per capita, German – US$3,250 per capita.

3. The basis of Jamaica’s enviable morbidity, mortality data is the result of the programme of community health care developed through the initiatives of Prof. Sir Kenneth Standard of the department of Social and Preventive Medicine of the University of the West Indies, and implemented by the Jamaican government culminating in major health reforms in the 1970’s leading to the development of the home-grown primary health care programme by 1978.

4. When based on a cost versus benefit comparison, Jamaica has derived the most health benefit for the least cost from its home-grown programmes when compared with every country in the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

5. The global health delivery process has undergone very important epochal changes. Every country must respond to these changes based on their local situation bearing in mind, that the health reform process in the respective countries can be easily undermined for generations to come if wrong policy decisions are taken, especially those which rely on transporting certain aspects of health systems from one country to another under the assumption that it works in America, Britain or Cuba and therefore it will work every where else. [more]