Advances in health care

THE CONTROVERSY created by the allegations of Opposition Chief Whip Ganga Singh against Housing Minister Keith Rowley is unfortunate in another sense; it is serving to distract public attention from the far more important matters being aired in the Budget debate. The charge appears to be a serious one, but speculation on it should not override interest in the ongoing deliberations over the Budget and its provisions which are intended to affect the lives of the entire citizenry.

For example, measures announced by Health Minister John Rahael on Friday to improve the level of health care in the country should be understood and welcomed by all. For one thing, it is good news that from the first of next month the benefits of the Chronic Disease Assistance Programme CDAP will be made available to all citizens, regardless of age, gender or financial standing. This means that all persons suffering from such chronic illnesses as high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, arthritis, depression and glaucoma will now be able to obtain their medication free of charge from any of the country’s 200 private participating pharmacies, once they have a CDAP prescription which can be obtained from public hospitals and private doctors as well.

According to the Minister, there should be no shortages of these medications since NIPDEC has been contracted to keep the hospitals and the pharmacies adequately supplied with them. The Health Minister also announced that by the end of this year the country’s first Dedicated Eye Theatre will be fully functional, with a staff of ophthalmologists and nurses, at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex. In addition to eye clinics at the Port-of-Spain and San Fernando hospitals, the Theatre at Mt Hope is expected to solve the distressing problem of glaucoma sufferers having to wait as long as five and six years  for the necessary operation to restore their vision. Mr Rahael pointed out that the waiting list of some 2,500 glaucoma patients has already been cut down to between 700 and 1,000 as a result of an arrangement with the Ophthalmological Society. The list will eventually be eliminated by the close of 2004. From next year, then, the Theatre will be able to offer such patients relief in relatively quick time.

In addition, the Minister expects that by the end of 2005 the long waiting list of patients needing surgery for hernia, fibroids and prostate problems will be eliminated. This, he noted, will be achieved by using the additional service of private doctors on contract and the facilities of private hospitals. To achieve this objective, a special unit has been established in the Ministry to contact patients on the list and schedule their operations. In commenting on the Budget delivered by Mr Manning last week Friday, we expressed concern about the Government’s ability to implement its many wide-ranging provisions. These are three measures we hope would be efficiently put into effect and maintained since they would effectively solve some of the major problems of the health care system. Senior citizens would no longer have to wait long hours at hospitals for their medication and those needing operations to correct such chronic and hampering problems as glaucoma and hernia will not have to wait as long as five or six years to obtain relief and a better quality of life.

As far as kidney and cornea transplants are concerned, the problem here will also be removed when the Minister presents the regulations governing the Tissue Transplant Act in parliament this week. Passage of the regulations will permit persons who are not family members to donate their organs to a patient or permit their organs to be harvested after their death. We will wait to see how effectively the Minister can fulfil these promises.