NCD strategy appears to have been abandoned – former Minister

…says policy environment weaker

By Samuel Sukhnandan

In light of Guyana being named as one of two countries that have the highest mortality for premature cardiovascular disease and diabetes in the Americas, former Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy has said that this may be as a result of Government abandoning the Non-Communicable Diseases (NDC) Strategy,

which was formulated and implemented during his time as Minister.

The former Minister believes that Guyana is not doing enough to fight against the NCDs, although there was an NCD strategy in the years 2003-2008 and again in the 2008-2015 period. “The NCD strategy appears to have been abandoned. The NCDs are largely lifestyle diseases. Physical activity, nutrition, abuse of alcohol and tobacco, etc, are all important factors that contribute to the NCDs,” he added.

The aggressive education and awareness programmes that were developed from these two strategies appeared to have been reduced or totally abandoned, according to Dr Ramsammy, who said that the community health fairs and school programmes and other initiatives, which were used to address issues such as positive lifestyles have also become sporadic.

However, what is more damaging, according to him, is the fact that the once aggressive diagnostic and treatment programmes have somewhat become weak. “We had increased the opportunistic testing for the NCDs by improving the diagnostic capacities in hospital and health centres. Piggybacking on the aggressive HIV testing Programme, we had encouraged every Guyanese, not just the elderly, but everyone to get their sugar tested and also blood pressure testing,” he recalled.

In this regard, the Health Advocate Programme was initiated and in this programme, community persons were trained and provided with blood pressure kits and glucose testing machines. These persons went house to house in certain communities and tested people. The purpose of the programme was to ensure that it reached all communities. “Instead of expanding the programme, it appears to have been ended,” the former Minister said.

However, Dr Ramsammy pointed out to Guyana Times that the Diabetes Foot Care Programme continued and this was a positive sign. But he said when the Programme was started at the Georgetown Public Hospital and expanded to the New Amsterdam Hospital, the intention was to expand it across the country, but this has not happened.

While acknowledging that there were some positive improvements, he said the policy environment was weaker than it was before.

“There are some positives. The move to enact the Tobacco Control Bill is a positive move. The effort to reintegrate mental health started under my tenure as Minister. Intensive training had been started. I see some mention that this is being continued. But there is need to intensify it,” he explained.

The Caribbean has the highest rate of mortality in the Americas from NCDs, with more than 40 per cent of related deaths occurring prematurely in people under 70 years old.

Health experts say NCD epidemics, such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer, kidney disease, stroke and heart disease, worsened across some Caribbean countries.

The Chronic Disease Research Centre said Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago had the highest mortality for premature cardiovascular disease and diabetes in the Americas. Out of 54 countries evaluated, Guyana is ranked number one and Trinidad is number two.

The Commission has reported that deaths from NCDs of persons between the ages of 30 and 69 in the Caribbean are double these deaths in North America.