Healthcare in Jamaica
Jamaica abolished user fees in its public health facilities in 2008, and the abolition is for Jamaicans without health insurance. The Ministry of Health says so in the same breath as it announces fee rises for everyone else: from 1 August 2018 user fees went up for non-residents, private patients and insured patients at all public health facilities, while Jamaicans who are public patients without insurance continue to be treated without charge. So a foreigner in a Jamaican public hospital pays. The second strand is the National Health Fund, which subsidises treatment for listed conditions and is open to residents rather than citizens - and here residence has a precise statutory meaning: ordinarily resident in Jamaica for periods aggregating not less than six months in the calendar year. The Fund's benefit turns on a doctor's certificate that you have one of the listed conditions, and on nothing about nationality.
At a glance
- Public health user fees for Jamaicans without insurance
- Abolished in 2008
- Public health user fees for non-residents
- Chargedas of 2018-08-01
- General medical visit registration
- $3,000as of 2018-08-01
The figure the Ministry announced for 1 August 2018; we found no later schedule published
- Specialty clinic registration
- $7,500as of 2018-08-01
- National Health Fund residence test
- Six months in the calendar year, aggregated
- Nationality test for the National Health Fund
- None - the Act turns on residence
Requirements
- For free public treatment: being a Jamaican public patient without health insurance
- For the National Health Fund: being ordinarily resident in Jamaica for at least six months in the calendar year
- A registered medical practitioner's certificate that you suffer from a specified disease or medical condition
- A valid and approved means of identification
- For everyone else: payment of the published user fees at the point of care
Country-level policy
Most countries freeze a revised edition at a date and print the date on the cover. Jamaica does not have an edition in that sense. The Revised Laws of Jamaica are loose-leaf: the Minister authorises the inclusion of individual pages by order published in the Gazette, each page carries a note of the order that authorised it, and the pages so authorised are from that date deemed to be the sole and proper Statute Book of Jamaica for the laws they contain. So the cut-off is not a property of an Act, it is a property of a page: the foot of every page of every statute on the law portal says which Legal Notice put it there. Open the Law Revision Act itself and you will find pages authorised by L.N. 480 of 1973 sitting next to pages authorised by L.N. 92c of 2012. What you can read off a Jamaican statute is therefore precise in a way nothing else in the region is, and the honest cut-off for a whole Chapter is the newest Legal Notice printed anywhere in it.
Exceptions by origin
No exceptions recorded
Nothing we have read treats any nationality differently for this topic. The rule above applies to everyone.
What the law says
«"resident" means a person who is ordinarily resident in
Jamaica for a period or periods aggregating in the
whole not less than six months in the calendar year;»This instrument is published only as an image. The wording above was read off that picture and checked by eye, so it did not pass the machine verbatim check the other quotations passed. Treat it as accurate but re-read the scan before relying on it.
«(a) provide prescribed health benefits to all residents, Act.
regardless of age, gender, health or economic status;»The word Act. in the middle of the line is the marginal note, which the publisher's recognition of its scan places inside the text.
«7. Every resident who-»This instrument is published only as an image. The wording above was read off that picture and checked by eye, so it did not pass the machine verbatim check the other quotations passed. Treat it as accurate but re-read the scan before relying on it.
«(a) is certified by a registered medical practitioner as suf-
fering from a specified disease or specified medical
condition;»This instrument is published only as an image. The wording above was read off that picture and checked by eye, so it did not pass the machine verbatim check the other quotations passed. Treat it as accurate but re-read the scan before relying on it.
«shall be entitled tobenefits under the Fund.»The missing space is the publisher's.
Practical notes
The fee schedule itself is not published online. The Ministry says the increases were gazetted in the National Health Services (Fees) Amendment Regulations 2016 and that the full schedule can be obtained from the Government Printing Office, a regional health authority or a local public hospital. The figures here are the examples the Ministry gave in its own announcement.
That announcement is dated July 2018 and we found nothing later. Treat the amounts as the last ones the Ministry published rather than as current prices.
The National Health Fund covers listed conditions rather than care in general. The list is the Act's First Schedule, which we did not read in full.
- administersHealth Fees Increase for Non-Residents and Private Patients/Insured Patients
Ministry of Health and Wellness
About this source
The ministry that runs the public health system and sets its user fees, and the only publisher that states who pays them: non-residents, private patients and insured patients, against Jamaicans without insurance who pay nothing.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the fee schedule, which it does not publish: it says the schedule is in the National Health Services (Fees) Amendment Regulations 2016 and can be had from the Government Printing Office, a regional health authority or a public hospital. The figures it does give are examples in a press release of July 2018 and nothing later has been published, so they are the last known amounts rather than current prices.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- administersHealth Fees Increase - the examples the Ministry gave
Ministry of Health and Wellness
About this source
The ministry that runs the public health system and sets its user fees, and the only publisher that states who pays them: non-residents, private patients and insured patients, against Jamaicans without insurance who pay nothing.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the fee schedule, which it does not publish: it says the schedule is in the National Health Services (Fees) Amendment Regulations 2016 and can be had from the Government Printing Office, a regional health authority or a public hospital. The figures it does give are examples in a press release of July 2018 and nothing later has been published, so they are the last known amounts rather than current prices.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- administersHealth Fees Increase - who is still free
Ministry of Health and Wellness
About this source
The ministry that runs the public health system and sets its user fees, and the only publisher that states who pays them: non-residents, private patients and insured patients, against Jamaicans without insurance who pay nothing.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the fee schedule, which it does not publish: it says the schedule is in the National Health Services (Fees) Amendment Regulations 2016 and can be had from the Government Printing Office, a regional health authority or a public hospital. The figures it does give are examples in a press release of July 2018 and nothing later has been published, so they are the last known amounts rather than current prices.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- administersHealth Fees Increase - where the schedule lives
Ministry of Health and Wellness
About this source
The ministry that runs the public health system and sets its user fees, and the only publisher that states who pays them: non-residents, private patients and insured patients, against Jamaicans without insurance who pay nothing.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the fee schedule, which it does not publish: it says the schedule is in the National Health Services (Fees) Amendment Regulations 2016 and can be had from the Government Printing Office, a regional health authority or a public hospital. The figures it does give are examples in a press release of July 2018 and nothing later has been published, so they are the last known amounts rather than current prices.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- consolidatesThe National Health Fund Act
Laws of Jamaica (Ministry of Justice) · consolidated to 2012
About this source
Jamaica's statute library, publishing the Revised Laws of Jamaica, the revised subsidiary legislation, Acts of Parliament by year and the Jamaica Gazette. Every document is a scan of the printed page with a text layer the publisher produced by recognition. It carries the Constitution, the Immigration Restriction (Commonwealth Citizens) Act, the Aliens Act, the Jamaican Nationality Act, the Foreign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens (Employment) Act, both Caribbean Community Acts, the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act and the Road Traffic Act.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for what a whole Act looks like today without reading the foot of the page: the Revised Laws are loose-leaf and each page is current only to the Legal Notice that authorised its inclusion, so one Act can hold pages from 1973 and 2012 at once. It publishes almost no commencement instruments, and the Law Revision Act expressly lets the Commissioners omit commencement provisions from the text, so a Chapter will often not say when it started. Its catalogue dates - operational date, last amendment - are not cut-offs and contradict the pages: the Free Movement of Skilled Persons Act is catalogued as last amended in 2004 and its pages were authorised in 2016. It must never be relied on for an absence in the Income Tax Act or the Customs Act: 102 of 295 pages of the first and 46 of 155 of the second carry no text layer at all, and the Second Schedule to the Customs Act is not in the published file. The Free Movement of Skilled Persons Act has no text layer at any page. Its browse index and gazette index are served by an endpoint that redirects an anonymous reader to an administrator login, so neither list returns anything and addresses have to be guessed from the title. Its TLS chain omits the intermediate certificate, so an ordinary client refuses the connection until the missing certificate is supplied.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source