Grenada to launch national health insurance program in 2013

Grenada which has announced 2013 as the scheduled start of several major initiatives – including the beginning of construction of a new parliament building – is promising to unveil another project next year.

Senator Ann Peters, the Minister of Health, has said that “significant work” has been completed in setting up a national health insurance program for Grenada.

The work has included the submission of a report by consultant Professor Karl Theodore of the University of the West Indies.

“By next year, we should have a national health insurance program on the ground in Grenada,” Peters said.

Grenada, Peters revealed, is studying the national health insurance models of Antigua, Dominica and the British Virgin Islands, and considering what will be contained in the “basket of goods” that will comprise the local health insurance plan.

“You may have to decide what are the services you are going to include in that package,” she explained. “Antigua seems to have a really well laid out program. They have different tiers.”

The Tillman Thomas administration, which has been criticized by many for not generating meaningful economic and social progress since coming to office in 2008, is expected to call general elections in the next few months.

Source: Caribbean News Now