TT suffering from ‘sitting disease’

The symposium was held at Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre, St Ann’s. In addressing the group comprised of medical professionals from across the region, Deyalsingh said, “We have to start to introduce into the national conversation a new disease called the sitting disease and you have to start to talk to your patients about this sedentary lifestyle… We drive to work, sit down whole day, your children sit down to play video games…The fact is we sit too much.” “And what I have noticed, our elderly who suffer and those who have hypertension, they feel that when they wake up on a morning and take their tests, they have done their part for the day in treating their conditions. And you know what they do for the rest of the day? They sit. We have to tell our people, the young and the elderly, that sitting is probably the most dangerous thing you can do for your health.” He called on the professionals to join with him and the ministry to, “recalibrate the way we think with respect to addressing issues like hypertension, diabetes and gestational-diabetes.” Deyalsingh added that the ministry also wanted to start a national conversation on TT’s diet.

He said humans did not evolve to the extent that a diet of 2,500 calories was necessary.

Food marketers, he added, would have people believe that people needed 2,500 calories per day or that 3,000 calories per day is necessary.

Part of the ministry’s plan is to change the way people looked at food and called on the medical professional to be advocates of this change.

He also called on the society to join with the ministry to formulate a national policy to tackle paediatric obesity. He added that for the first time in 2016 there were zero maternal deaths at the Mt Hope Women’s hospital after being criticised for comments made on the matter last year.

“In 2016, for the first time, Mt Hope Women’s Hospital recorded zero maternal deaths because someone paid attention to the data and put measures in place.” Sharing statistics on the patients who visited and interacted with medical professionals at Eric Williams Medicals Sciences Complex, Deyalsingh said, “Total inpatient ward admissions for Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC/MT Hope), is 23, 730. Adult A&E, some of them there because of endocrine disorders is 58,641.

Paediatric A&E, 53,460 patients. Outpatient Clinics, 117,565 patients in Eric Williams alone.

This is not San Fernando where the burden of endocrine diseases are.

It is higher. Surgery, 6, 626 patients. Giving you a grand total of patient Interactions at EWMSC of 260, 072 patients.

“Prescriptions filled at EWMSC alone was 229, 564. How much of that is due to diabetes and hypertension,” he asked.

“Radiological services, 143,883; laboratory investigations, 2,136,267 at EW MSC. Measure that, manage that and a lot are due to endocrine disorders,” he said.