CARIMAC Times 2016: The JREAM Edition Journalists Reviving Awareness of what Matters | Page 77

Dr. Tana Ricketts Roomes, medical officer in
the Department of Community Health and
Psychiatry, concurred that low-income families
are unable to adequately cater to their family’s
health needs.
“Family members who are employed often have
jobs that are very low paying and health care is
expensive. This tends to hamper their healthseeking behaviour.”
Roomes added that low-income family health is
also affected by the levels of education received,
as it tends to affect their health literacy. This
is the ability to understand their conditions
when it is explained to them, make decisions
and follow up on instructions that are given
by the doctor.
Both Moncrieffe and Phang were asked: “How
often does your family visit the doctor for a
check-up?”
Moncrieffe said her family does not visit the
doctor very often, but Phang said she tries to
visit the doctor at least once a year.
According to Ricketts Roomes, a lack of visits to
a doctor can lead to poor health conditions and
poor management, especially in children. She
said, if children do not visit a doctor for regular
check-ups, they could become malnourished,
especially if the parent does not know what he
or she is doing. This can affect their growth and
development, especially with regard to learning.
Adults, on the other hand, may develop noncommunicable, chronic illnesses such as
diabetes and hypertension from their eating
habits and lifestyle.

Moncrieffe said her family only visits the doctor
when someone is very ill.
Ricketts Roomes said patients from low-income
families tend to visit the doctor only when they
are seriously ill, rather than as a way to ensure
they are maintaining good health.
Despite this, she said when it comes to
immunisation, the parents tend to make it a
priority to take their child to the health centre
to get vaccinated. At the age of six, when the
child is fully immunised, the visits begin to
decrease.
“They are not the major concern because they tend
to focus on their children a lot, and, sometimes
to the neglect of themselves; because they have
to choose ‘is it my child or me?’ Sometimes
that’s what happens, especially with the women,”
Ricketts Roomes shared.
Phang said when she was infected with what
she believed to be the chikungunya virus, she
could not walk because both of her legs were in
what she described as excruciating pain. The
virus, also known as chik-v, is transmitted to
humans by infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.
It caused fever and severe joint pain for many
Jamaicans in 2014 as it reached epidemic
proportions.
She told CARIMAC Times that she wanted to
visit the doctor to get prescribed medications
to relieve the pain but could not because she
did not have any money. Instead, she used an
old fashion remedy to get rid of the pain.
“Mi grandmadda did ave ah home remedy, so
she get some rum and she put pimento seed

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