BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – WITH the region still grappling with the growing threat of Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs), Jamaica’s Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness believes that everybody needs to get onboard to deal with the problem.
Addressing reporter’s questions on Thursday (Jul. 6) at the recently-concluded 38th Regular Meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government in St. George’s, Grenada, Holness said he believes that very good recommendations were made at the summit and all leaders agreed to put their best efforts to have them implemented.
Further, he stated that they agreed to dealing with the problems of smoking and tobacco use, the consumption of sugar, salt and exercise.
Leaders have found that the problems of NCDs are not limited to one country within the region, but the wider Caribbean.
St. Kitts and Nevis continues to see growing cases of NCDs, especially Hypertension, Diabetes and Cancer.
“…we encourage all to take this very seriously,” PM Holness said.
The Federation’s Political Leader, Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris, who is the region’s spokesperson for health-related matters at the CARICOM level, made a presentation during the meeting.
According to a statement from the Government Information Service, Dr. Harris made a clarion call for greater attention to be placed on addressing cases of NCDs in the Caribbean region.
The SKNIS statement noted that Dr. Harris admitted that the “significant leadership we demonstrated in 2007 on NCDs seems not to have resulted in consistent action required to reposition our region in a path of better control and prevention of NCDs”.
That came as the region marked the 10th Anniversary of the Port-of-Spain Declaration on NCDs.
The Prime Minister highlighted four risk areas that are associated with NCDs that need to be addressed: unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity, tobacco use and harmful use of alcohol.
“I am advised that of all four, smoking has the greatest impact on the diseases taken collectively…We are being urged this year to do what we commit to do in 2016. End smoking in public places as a way to reduce exposure of the people of the Caribbean to tobacco smoke. Specifically, this Conference is being urged to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the 2007 NCD Summit by declaring CARICOM a region free of tobacco smoke by 2022 and backing this commitment by legislation.”
A number of recommendations were made coming off of the 2016 meeting. However, like many others, the region has yet to see them being implemented.
This has drawn criticisms from many who described those meetings in very harsh terms.
