Health ministry urges corporate Barbados to back health facilities

Health minister Senator Lisa Cummins has called on corporate Barbados, service clubs and philanthropic organisations to help meet the needs of the country’s health services and will invite them to a targeted planning session within two weeks.

She made the appeal during the signing ceremony and launch of the Sensory Room project at the Albert Cecil Graham Development Centre on Friday, a collaborative initiative between the Legacy Foundation and the Rotary Club of Barbados South, held at the Barbados Public Workers Co-operative Credit Union Limited on Belmont Road.

Senator Cummins announced that within the next two weeks, the Ministry of Health and Wellness would invite the corporate community and service clubs to identify ways they could partner with health institutions across the island.

“I will be issuing a call to the corporate community in Barbados and service clubs. I will be inviting you to sit with us, and to sit with us not in an ad hoc way, but in a targeted, dedicated session that allows us to look at the needs all across this country in the health sector, to be able to identify what those needs are, to be able to pair need with a sponsor or a partner.”

Organisations could contribute in various ways, from funding equipment and refurbishing facilities to volunteering their time, she said.

“If it is the beautification of a room, the provision of a set of equipment, the provision of time, sometimes time costs nothing, especially volunteer time, to be able to come and paint a wall or to read with a child, we want to be able to become inclusive, not just in outputs, in physical spaces, but inclusive in inputs.”

The health minister stressed that improving the country’s health services required a collective effort:

“It’s not everybody else’s problem to solve. So that someone else gives and it looks good, and we have these press conferences, and we go away, and everything goes back, and the status quo remains. But it is everybody’s problem to solve by getting involved and being active.”

Senator Cummins said the ministry intended to bring together representatives from hospitals, polyclinics and other health facilities with potential sponsors to establish a more coordinated approach to philanthropy.

“It is my intention in the next two weeks to sit with all of our institutions from polyclinics to hospitals to facilities under the Ministry of Health and the corporate community to identify who in this country is going to step forward and say, Here I am, use me. 

“I am willing to support health services, to support children, to support diabetes, to support kidney function, to support heart care, to support all of those specific needs, whether it’s cancer, not just the big ticket things that have the benefit of a lot of visibility, but the things that are often unseen.”

The aim was to build “a genuine national ecosystem of philanthropy, of service, and of support” for health institutions, she said.

Continued investment was needed to improve services for children with developmental disabilities, said Senator Cummins, noting that the Albert Cecil Graham Development Centre currently serves around 610 children and supports about 164 families.

“That arguably is a drop in the bucket of what is actually needed, because that’s just one facility, and that’s just the government’s facility.”

She praised the Legacy Foundation for encouraging a more transformational vision for the sensory room project and commended the Rotary Club of Barbados South for its leadership in supporting children with developmental disabilities.

“The government can and will continue to invest in these spaces. 

“We will, and we can continue to partner with agencies like the Legacy Foundation with the support of service organisations like Rotary. 

“In order for us to become a genuinely inclusive society, inclusive for the children who have special needs because they’re autistic, inclusive for the children who have Down syndrome and cerebral palsy and need physical spaces so that they can play safely and be able to engage with their peers. Inclusive for parents who feel as though they do not have support or inclusive for caregivers and teachers and therapists who want to be able to help and to provide a cure. That’s the Barbados that we want to be able to build.”

(LG)