Jamaicans urged to take personal responsibility for their health
Published:Thursday | October 31, 2024 | 12:12 AMCarl Gilchrist/Gleaner Writer
Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton has declared that non-communicable diseases (NCDs) represent a crisis not just for his ministry, but for the entire society.
“The NCD crisis is now a significant developmental issue which threatens to undermine the gains of the economic, social, and political progress that we have made,” Tufton said in a statement to Parliament on Tuesday.
“Jamaicans must come to terms with their personal responsibility for their health and understand that their health is their wealth and that prevention is better than cure,” Tufton insisted.
He said the Ministry of Health and Wellness has taken proactive steps to transform the primary healthcare system to meet the demands of the new challenge.
In 2023, the minister tabled the Primary Health Care Reform Policy Paper that outlines key strategic actions that are needed to reorganise the primary health system into a modern, patient-centred service.
He said that under this initiative, several health centres have been rehabilitated since then, including Buff Bay, Delphi, Port Morant, and Arcadia health centres.
“All these facilities now meet the new primary healthcare service standards that include increased service delivery and patient care through the addition of medical doctors and other staff to support the rising need for chronic-care service,” Tufton told the House of Representatives.
Four of Jamaica’s main NCDs are cancer, cardiovascular disease (including hypertension), diabetes, and chronic lower respiratory disease (such as asthma), which together, account for more than 80 per cent of all NCD-related deaths in persons younger than 70 years old.
Overall, NCDs account for most of the deaths in Jamaica.
Contributing factors to NCDs include tobacco use, obesity, and insufficient physical activity.
In 2023, eight point six per cent of people aged 15 and older in Jamaica use tobacco. A 2022 report also stated that 61 per cent of people aged 15 and older in Jamaica were overweight or obese, while, in 2016, thirty-two point six per cent of persons reported insufficient physical activity.
In 2003, the government of the day created the National Health Fund to help reduce the cost of treating NCDs by providing free or subsidised medicines and financing prevention.
Since then, several initiatives have been introduced to support the fight against NCDs.