The European Investment Bank (EIB) is providing a Euro14 million (One Euro=US$1.29 million) loan to strengthen St. Lucia’s health sector, build capacity, and ready the island for impending health-related emergencies.
“This loan will assist us not only in strengthening our health system but also strengthen us in paying some of the commitments that we incurred during COVID. We still have many commitments. We still have to pay for isolation facilities, we still have to pay for medicines, and we have to strengthen our health systems,” Prime Minister Phillip J. Pierre said at the signing ceremony on Monday.
“This loan is timely; it’s appropriate,’ Pierre added.
EIB Vice-President, Ricardo Felix, who is leading a delegation to the island, said the EIB promotes the European Union’s values of freedom, democracy, and solidarity in and within Europe.
“We know it is also our values shared with our Caribbean friends, and we know well that a universal health care system with quality at affordable prices is key for a fully developed democracy,” said Felix, who is on his first official visit to the region that will also take him to Barbados.
“No one is free if basic health is not ensured and protected by universal health care,” he said, adding that it is imperative to step up actions to strengthen the health care systems “to prepare them for challenges that…it is not if they come, but when will they come.
Health Minister Moses Jn Baptiste told the ceremony that there is a need to strengthen the island’s primary health facilities adding, “this was very apparent because we realize that even though COVID-19 and all of its ramifications had to be dealt with at the secondary level…the primary support system is very instrumental in assisting with disasters”.
He said the government identified the need to source external financial support to implement the measures which were identified and therefore opted to utilize the EIB’s funds to assist in building resilience within the health sector.
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