Less sugary drinks in hospital vending machines

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh on the weekend announced his intention to effect this change at all public hospitals, after observing the prominence and dominance of soft drinks and juices with a high sugar content compared to water and flavoured water in vending machines at the Maternity Ward of Port-of-Spain General Hospital and at the Mt Hope Women’s Hospital (MHWH), Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope.

Out on Mother’s Day to visit women who had given birth that day, reporters observed Deyalsingh chatting with officials at both hospitals about reducing the number of sugary drinks in the vending machines in their waiting rooms. Questioned about this after his second and final stop of the day at MHWH, Deyalsingh said, “The same way there’s a drive to make our schools healthy zones, when I look around public facilities like this and see the amount of products on offer that are not conducive to good health...I’m not saying we’re going to take away all the sugary drinks but instead of having over 20 varieties, let’s trim it down.”

The minister recommended increasing providing “a better space” for water, natural fruit juices and coconut water. He reminded that, “Part of the NCD (non-communicable diseases) plan is to start to encourage public spaces that are under the management and control of the Ministry of Health, in the first instance, to see how they could offer healthier options.”

“We want to (promote) healthy options because if we don’t do this, we will have to build a hospital in every community to treat diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol and then everything becomes acute and chronic. We want to change the paradigm through simple changes in behaviour,” Deyalsingh told reporters.

No time line was given though on how soon the public can expect to see a wider variety of healthy drinks stocked in hospital vending machines.