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7,000 Guyanese living with chronic diseases

Nov 01, 2009 News

Chronic diseases have not received the attention they deserve globally as the investment in the fight against these diseases nationally and globally has been very poor.
This is according to Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, who noted that no country in the world is investing the kind of resources needed.
He said that the Global Alliance to promote health has not recognised the importance of investment in chronic diseases.
It is in this regard that Minister Ramsammy has been consistent in his call for a Millennium Development Goal (MDG) plus because Chronic Diseases have been left out in the MDGs.
Currently, there is a universal call on the United Nations to remedy that flaw in the MDG. “And indeed through the efforts of the WHO and through the efforts of the other organisations, there is an aggressive call to the United Nations that the MDGs should be amended to have indicators for chronic diseases.”
Minister Ramsammy said that Guyana has been making its own investments and efforts to scale up its activities from a prevention, diagnosis and treatment perspective.
He revealed that the chronic disease registry is now well established with close to 7,000 persons living with diabetes have been registered.
This registry, he said, informs the Health Ministry on whether or not these persons are on treatment.
Data for the year 2006 indicated that ischemic heart disease accounted for 12.1 percent of deaths in Guyana, while cervicascular disease accounted for 10 percent, diabetes 8.8 per cent, cancer 8.1 percent, hypertensive diseases 4.7 percent, heart failure 3.4 percent and HIV accounted for 5.9 percent of the deaths in Guyana.
Data have not been released for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009, as the Health Ministry is still in the process of verifying death certificates.
Meanwhile, as it relates to the diabetes issue, the Health Minister explained that there are presently foot care programmes in the Primary Health Care system. There are 26 health facilities in Guyana that offer foot care programmes where screening of certain kinds of foot problems occur.
“It is for this reason that we invested in establishing a referral system at Georgetown Hospital. It has the technology and is being operated by trained people.”
By next year, Dr. Ramsammy said that there would be more than 50 health facilities in Guyana that will provide screening.
The Health Ministry has embarked on a public awareness campaign to teach citizens to examine their feet. Because of this, there has been a 63 percent reduction of amputation in Guyana in the last two years.

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