Virtual Health Library

The VHL, whose Web site is due to be set up later this year, will contain all the latest scientific information on health, as well as a consumer advisory.

On Tuesday, Health Minister John Rahael launched the National Advisory Committee which will oversee the creation of the VHL.

That committee, however, must begin its deliberations with one hard fact — less than 50 percent of the adult population of this country uses the Internet. What this means, then, is that if the VHL remains virtual, it won’t be reaching the persons who most need it.

This is because health problems are more prevalent among the poor and the uneducated — and a health database is hardly likely to be accessed by such people.

So, in order to ensure that the VHL doesn’t just become a device that makes the ministry seem modern but which is virtually useless, there must be mechanisms in place to ensure that the information is disseminated.

After all, if people are educated about primary health care, then the pressure on tertiary health care is lessened. Consider the fact, for example, that the leading cause of death in Trinidad and Tobago is heart disease, which accounts for over 27 percent of all deaths.

But heart disease is, in most cases, preventable. This means that at least a quarter of the population could live between ten to 20 years longer, if they ate sensibly, exercised, and didn’t smoke. Diabetes, which is controllable if not necessarily preventable, accounts for 13 percent of deaths. Cancer accounts for 12 percent, a figure which could also be reduced through early detection and treatment.

But the starting point must be effective education, and in this respect health officials have an additional challenge beyond just getting information out. In recent years, the hawking of alternative medicine has exploded. Not only do the purveyors of so-called "traditional" therapies take full advantage of electronic media advertising, but they can even be seen in health clinics trying to get sales from vulnerable people. On the radio and television, herbal cures are touted as being able to "cure any disease" — including cancer, diabetes and even HIV.

Frankly, we are surprised that the authorities have not charged these persons with, at the very least, false advertising — although, in our opinion, reckless endangerment and intent to commit fraud might be more appropriate.

For the fact is, these herbalists, homeopaths, reflexologists, naturopaths and so on are taking advantage of persons with therapies that have little chance of curing any disease.

Yet these conmen have been making good profits selling their bogus wares, and this is largely because of the average person’s ignorance about health matters.

A VHL which remains suspended in cyber-space will do little or nothing to ease this situation.

It is up to the health care professionals, from doctors to nurses to social workers, to use this resource to educate people about what they need to do to stay healthy. Lives, literally, are at stake.