(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) One year ago, on 15 September, 2007, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) held the World’s first ever Summit of Regional Leaders, to address the challenges of non-communicable diseases. These diseases are estimated to cause more that 50 percent of the World’s deaths.
That Summit resulted in the Port of Spain Declaration: Unifying to fight the Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). That Declaration includes 15 actionable recommendations designed to mobilise the Member States of CARICOM to implement programmes to ensure improved health for their citizens. Today we honour one of those recommendations in the Port-of-Spain Declaration namely: to celebrate Caribbean Wellness Day on the second Saturday in September each year.
I am pleased to note that many of our CARICOM countries have established National Commissions and other coordinating mechanisms for treating with the NCDs. I am pleased at the role of the Private sector and the Labour movement which have joined their respective Governments in stimulating public awareness on how to engage in preventive activities to reduce the risk of heart diseases, hypertension, diabetes and obesity. I am pleased too that many CARICOM countries have put in place the requisite public health policies and programmes to sustain these preventive practices, as well as to invest in care and treatment of those who are afflicted by these diseases. In this regard we acknowledge the important role of the Pan American Health Organisation, the Canadian Public Health Authority and the Canadian International Development Agency for their invaluable support to this venture.
People of the Caribbean, more than three years ago, the Region was warned by the seminal Report of the Caribbean Commission on Health and Development chaired by the Honourable Sir George Alleyne OCC, of the grave social and economic consequences of not paying urgent attention to prevention strategies. That Report provided statistics that demonstrated in stark terms the great economic burdens both to the individual and to the State caused by the increasing rates of these non-communicable diseases. It pointed to the consequences in terms of death and debilitating illness, strokes, amputations and others, most of which are avoidable.
Today’s focus on wellness is therefore to be seen as a catalyst to all of us, to pay heed to the need to take charge of our health. Indeed the theme of Caribbean Wellness Day 2008 – Love Your Body—is most appropriate. It highlights the need to exercise regularly, eat healthily, reduce the intake of alcohol, and do not smoke. These are essential behaviour patterns which we must each pledge to adopt and sustain.
Let us therefore make this Caribbean Wellness Day a stimulus to a Caribbean Wellness revolution, which will indeed fulfil the acclamation of another landmark, the Nassau Declaration of 2001 in which CARICOM Heads of Government advocated that the Health of the Region is the Wealth of the Region.
People of the Caribbean, Wellness Day will be judged a success only if we truly unite in the fight against the non-communicable diseases. I call on all individually and collectively, let us do our best to win this fight – and if anything by a KNOCK OUT.
