Ministry of Health & Environment

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Minister of Health and Environment, Rudyard Spencer (right), is greeted by Chief Executive Officer of the Jamaica Employers' Federation, Jacqueline Coke-Lloyd (left), at the World and Safety Health Executive Forum and Corporate Wellness Launch, at the Jamaica Pegasus on Monday (April 28). The Ministry of Health National Workplace Wellness Programme was created to promote healthy lifestyle practices among employees within the workplace setting, in order to maintain and improve health, well-being and productivity, thereby improving the overall health of working class Jamaicans by creating healthy workplaces.

Minister of Health and Environment, Rudyard Spencer, has said that workplace wellness is a critical component of any health promotion strategy and is a legitimate investment in any organization.

"A healthy workplace is your best guarantee of sustainable performance and consistently improved productivity," the Minister stated, as he addressed the launch of the Corporate Wellness Programme today (April 28) at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in Kingston.

The programme is a joint initiative between the Ministry and the Jamaica Employers Federation (JEF), and is designed to promote healthy lifestyle practices among employees within the workplace setting, in order to maintain and improve health, well-being and productivity, thereby improving the overall health of working class Jamaicans.

"Health promotion is one of the most cost effective strategies that can be utilized to achieve healthy outcomes and our health promotion strategy must seek to change behaviour and result in a re-deployment of scarce resources from preventable and lifestyle illnesses to treat those diseases that people can do very little to prevent," the Minister stated.

These diseases include obesity, hypertension, chronic lifestyle diseases and cardiovascular diseases.

Minister Spencer urged corporate Jamaica to signal its commitment to the future of the country by financing and monitoring this programme with the same level of seriousness and vigilance that they do with their products and services.

"I want the Government to establish a database of companies that have this wellness programme and that this database should be made public. This will help job seekers to determine the suitability of companies, when they are choosing employers," he stated.

The Minister signaled his intention to formulate a policy, which will make it mandatory for every business to have a corporate wellness programme.

He said this is especially important in light of the stressful environment brought about by crime and violence and economic hardship.

Chief Executive Officer of the JEF, Jacqueline Coke-Lloyd, urged employers to prioritize safety and health.

"It is well known that employers that invest in workplace safety and health can expect to reduce fatalities, injuries and illnesses resulting in down time; improve workers morale and productivity while lessening absenteeism, labour loss and the cost of retraining; and most importantly, reduce cost in fines which the pending Occupational Environment Safety and Health Act will impose on companies, which are non-compliant," Mrs. Coke-Lloyd said.

In presenting an overview of the initiative, Patricia Fletcher, Corporate Wellness Consultant stated that, "in view of the increasing burden of chronic and non-communicable diseases, escalating health care cost and the need to increase productivity nationally, a workplace wellness programme has been introduced."

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