Business View Caribbean | December 2019

62 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN DECEMBER 2019 to have their children birthed here. “Patients pay their own way. We do accept both local and international health cards, and have a fair amount of customers who fly in here to have procedures done at a fraction of what they would pay in say Britain, the U.S., and Canada. That is something we are seriously trying to exploit in terms of health tourism. We would certainly like to expand our services in that way because we do have a fair amount of overseas customers.” BVC: Is it a challenge to recruit and retain nurses? Wade: “We don’t have any problem attracting nurses. We do have a problem in the National Health Service in Jamaica with retaining nurses. Because there are scouts that come from Canada and the U.S. who present our trained nurses with offers of remuneration and migration packages that are difficult for us to compete with. So, we do have a fairly high attrition level here at Andrews and across the island in our public system. It is so severe that our government recently brought in nurses from as far as the Philippines, Cuba, and other regions just to fill the deficit of nurses in this country.” BVC: Do you participate in community outreach programs? Wade: “Yes, we plan a major outreach each quarter that takes us across the island, particularly to communities that are economically challenged and have difficulty finding the funds to pay for medical services. We offer these services to the community absolutely free. At a recent one, we went to Old Harbour and offered a full range of services including doctor’s visits, pap smears, physiotherapy, we had a mobile pharmacy to fill prescriptions that were generated, and we had an optician. That was a partnership because we don’t have an optical service here, but we do have a dental center at Andrews that offers services to the public when 1 Dover Rd Kgn 10 Jamaica | (876) 937-0515 www.medicalproductsjamaica.com HELPING PEOPLE DO MORE, FEEL BETTER, LIVE LONGER. Medical Products Ltd. is a licensed distributor of pharmaceutical and medical products. In addition, we offer a range of medical equipment, and hospital supplies to meet our customer’s existing and changing needs.