JAMAICA

Health Sector Reform Program

Improvement Programs Performance Evaluation

Loan No. 1028/OC-JA

The Government of Jamaica has secured financing from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to assist in implementing a broad-based action program to improve the performance of the health sector. The Ministry of Health, as executing agency, is seeking to recruit a consulting firm to evaluate the performance of the health sector improvement programs, which have been undertaken since the mid-1990’s. The programs to be evaluated in three sub-studies are:

· Health sector reforms: These have been implemented with assistance from the IDB and include decentralization, health promotion, mental health, quality assurance, emergency medical services and national health insurance.

· Jamaica drugs for the elderly program: Set up in 1996, this program assists the elderly with subsidies on essential drugs for specified chronic conditions.

· User fee program: User fees were revised in 1993 and 1999 with the objective of providing supplementary resources for the public health sector.

The main tasks in each sub-study are review of documents/reports, analysis of data, interviews with key stakeholders, assessment of performance and recommendation of future action.

The consultant team should comprise a senior health planner, a senior management analyst, a senior health economist, a senior pharmacist, a social scientist and a public health specialist. The work of the team will be supported by research assistants.

Level of effort will be 78 person-weeks and total elapsed time will be 16 weeks.

Interested firms, which must be established in one of the IDB’s member countries, are asked to send an expression of interest within one calendar month after publication of this notice to:

Ministry of Health.

Attn: Director, Project Planning and Implementation.

2-4 King St..

Kingston, Jamaica.

Tel: (1-876) 967-1364.

Fax: (1-876) 967-7687