North-East Regional Health Authority – Jamaica

a medical doctor, nor even in the medical field. There is also a Regional Technical Director who reports to the Regional Director and needs to be a medical doctor to provide the technical and clinical guidance, but the CEO is hired based on management principles. “Now, when I started out,” Lamm explains, “I actually worked as a secretary for a CEO in the St. Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital. I started out my working career in the government service in Jamaica; I left and worked in the private sector in the secretarial field for two years and then came back to government, but this time, with what we call an executive agency, the Urban Development Corporation, and worked with one of their subsid- iaries, the St. Ann Development Company, whose primary operations were within tourism facilities, attractions, beaches, and historical sites.While working as the executive secretary to the general manager I said that my next step would be to do something in management. So, I registered with the University of the West Indies and started my first degree in Management Studies. I have since completed a Master of Science Degree and am currently pursuing a Doctorate in Business Ad- ministration, also with the UWI. My philosophy is that once you are good at managing and leading you can technically work in any field because once you bring the principles of leadership and management, those principles tend to be the same –how you vision, how you set your goals and strategies, what you are trying to accomplish, and how you get your team to work with you in achieving that vision.” NORTH-EAST REGIONAL HEALTH AUTHORITY Within the purview of NERHA, this means overseeing the management the secondary health care delivery in four hospitals, St. Ann’s Bay Regional, Port Maria and Annotto Bay Hospi- tals in St. Mary, and the Port Antonio Hospital in Portland. Then, there are 72 health centers, two of which were community hospitals (Alexandria and Buff Bay) throughout the three parishes which comprise the primary health care delivery network. That amounts to between 2,500 and 2,600 members of staff who are employed across the parishes in various health facilities. This includes doctors, nurses, porters and staff, female attendants, drivers, paramedics, lab workers, and administrative staff across all the disciplines that are required in healthcare. “Our biggest challenge across the island, right now, is that we are on a campaign looking at how we minimize the impact of non-communicable diseases,” Lamm goes on to say. “We have quite a number of our population who are fighting obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and those types of illnesses which can be prevented with healthy lifestyles and behaviors. And if the population is more aware of how to take care of themselves, this would be possible. Our program is about education and health promotion in terms of prop- er nutrition, physical activities, managing your weight, and looking at what you eat to prevent the onset of diabetes and hypertension and other non-communicable diseases. Treating the under- lying problem goes a long way towards prevent- ing secondary diseases which are much harder to treat.” ST. ANN’S BAY REGIONAL HOSPITAL