Bad health, bad Economy

“If I were to ask anyone in this auditorium to put up your finger,” said Deyalsingh speaking at the Couva/Point Lisas Chamber of Commerce’s annual Christmas Dinner and Awards Ceremony on Wednesday night, “if you are diabetic, suffer from hypertension, suffer from high cholesterol, have some form of cancer, or have an immediate relative like a spouse, a mother or father (who is afflicted with some ailment), all your hands would go up. Correct? Every single hand in this auditorium will go up, including mine.” Deyalsingh said bad eating habits, displayed in the audience’s choice to indulge in the wide array of deserts offered at the dinner, is bad in itself, but also bad for the businesses represented in the audience.

“All people who own businesses, how many times do we have an employee who would call in sick because they have to take their mother or their father to the doctor or to a clinic? it is estimated that the cost to this country for non communicable diseases (NCD’s) is about $6 billion per year.” The figure, he said, includes direct medical costs, indirect medical costs and productivity lost due to employee illness.

Calling on the business community to champion health in business, Deyalsingh announced Government’s creation of a US $51 million national plan for tackling NCD’s, funded by the Inter-American Development Bank.

He said that the plan was the result of a 2007 pledge made at a Caricom Heads of Government meeting which, he said, laid dormant since then due to lack of political will.

The nation’s low productivity was further highlighted by Agriculture Minister, Clarence Rambharat.

“Even though this country has effectively invested billions in educating our population, we have not seen that being transferred into productivity in the workplace,” Rambharat said.

He then turned his attention to his portfolio, saying that the responsibility to reduce the food import bill is not only the Government’s, but the citizens’.

“Every time the population talks to me about the food import bill, I always go back to placing the individual responsibility on them. it is important that as a country we wean ourselves off unhealthy and unsustainable food imports. It is vital that we do that, not only because of the high food import bill but, because of the cost to us as a healthy nation.” He then stated his commitment to encouraging agriculture, saying that Government intends to enforce the covenants made with persons who purchased Caroni 1975 Ltd lands which restricted its use to agriculture, as some have since converted its use to the detriment of the agriculture industry.