Ministry creating guidelines to detect social determinants of health

Nov 03, 2017 News

In order to be more efficient in its delivery of health care, the Ministry of Public Health has plans to introduce guidelines that will help its health workers recognise the social determinants of health.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age in, including the health system. These circumstances, according to WHO, are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels, which are themselves influenced by policy choices.
As she deliberated on the need to pay close attention to the social determinants of health recently, Minister of Public Health, Ms. Volda Lawrence, pointed out that “where people live, learn and work can affect a wide range of health risks and outcomes.”
In light of this, she said that the Ministry will be creating guidelines which will be followed by health workers in recognising the social determinants of health.
“We are now thinking that within the Ministry we should have a component which deals with the social determinants of health and violence, to be able to access and analyse what is coming to us from the various levels. This will be able to allow us to see what changes to make at the primary health care level,” Lawrence said.
It was discussions in this regard that the Minister recently engaged Canada-based Vascular Specialist, Dr. Sonia Anand. Dr. Anand is a Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the McMaster University in Canada.
Lawrence during the discussion stated, that Non Communicable Diseases [NCDs] has been one of the Ministry’s big ticket items linked to behavioural lifestyle in people.
While stressing the importance of public awareness and education, the Minister noted that the Ministry will be heightening its public awareness campaigns and expanding its community-based medical outreach programmes.
“We are looking at 2018, where we would have monies allocated for the public awareness department, so we can be able to bring a lot of information to the people to educate them,” she said.
According to the Minister, the Ministry’s policies are geared towards ensuring that there is universal health coverage, starting from the primary health care level to the tertiary level of care. On this note, she highlighted the importance of continued collaborations with faith-based organisations and the establishment of school health clubs which, she said, will enhance public education and enable an opportunity for simple medical screening.

Minister Volda Lawrence [left] and Dr. Sonia Anand

The Minister further asserted that through collaborations with organisations and individuals like Dr. Anand, the Ministry will be able to train ‘non-medical’ persons who will be equipped to test blood pressure, while being able to recognise when a person should be referred to a medical institution for further care and treatment.
“Technology today has made it so easy. The machines are so easy to use, making reading and monitoring of one’s blood pressure and blood sugar so easy,” said Minister Lawrence, as she considered how “that particular skill can be handled by anyone, at any time.”
As such the Minister is convinced that if “somebody goes to church or goes to the mosque, there is a group of persons who will be trained to look for vital signs. You can [go to church] and get your pressure tested or test your sugar, or they can refer you onward…this is what we are hoping for at a community level.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Anand disclosed that plans are apace to conduct research aimed at finding a model that is most appropriate for training of non-physician health workers to expand community-based medical outreach programmes in Guyana.
“When we think of chronic disease management, we think of the future to prevent people from getting to a point where they need dialysis or heart attack, to really identify who has high blood pressure, who has diabetes, and try and treat them early,” Dr. Anand explained.
In this regard, she noted, that training of persons must be done in a standardised way, whereby persons measure blood pressure and blood sugar in an easy and simple method.
“I think that’s the way to the future. Other countries have found that it’s just too expensive to rely on doctors and say it’s only a ‘doctor issue’,” Dr. Anand noted. For this reason, she noted that persons ought to be aware of their dietary intake of salt, sugars and processed packaged foods. She also considered that the lack of exercise is a main contributor factor to chronic diseases.
But according to Dr. Anand, risk factors can be screened either in community group or by non-physician health workers. Either of the two methods, she said, will aid in early detection of chronic non communicable diseases.

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