Resident Representative for JICA Saint Lucia Hirohito Takata is confident that this seminar will build the capacity of countries and lead them on the right path to strengthening measures for the prevention and management of NCDs.
Saint Lucia is among nine Caribbean countries which participated in a three-day follow-up seminar on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) Prevention and Control hosted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) at the Harbor Club Hotel in Rodney Bay. The seminar provided a platform for ex-participants of the JICA Knowledge Co-Creation Training which was held in Japan last year, that is health practitioners to share and discuss their successes and challenges in advancing the action plan for the prevention and management of Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in country.
Resident Representative for JICA Saint Lucia Hirohito Takata is confident that this seminar will build the capacity of countries and lead them on the right path to strengthening measures for the prevention and management of NCDs. “JICA recognize that NCD pose a serious risk to the region from a clinical, social and financial perspective. Therefore, further cooperation is now being considered which will focus on emphasizing on countermeasures against the risk of NCDs in the region. This is a context for this very anticipated seminar which will identify the challenges as well as potential use for all the participating countries across the region.”
Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sharon Belmar-George spoke on the valuable opportunity that the Caribbean countries received from JICA to learn the health systems of Japan and the model utilized to address NCDs in country. “Japan is one of countries in terms of their health data we see longevity; their long life span, both for males and females and also low numbers of NCDs, for example in Okinawa and some of the other countries that we were able to visit within Japan. So the approach is that we were able to do an assessment of our health situation, look at the actual health situation within Japan and come up with very realistic, practical measures that we can implement in country.”
Dr. Sharon Belmar-George applauded this initiative and says it is timely and ties in perfectly with the mandate or direction that the Ministry of Health is going. “With the government’s mandate of Universal Health Coverage in Saint Lucia and also the strengthening of preventable diseases that we are seeing with the addition of our nutrition unit, these policies are exactly in tune as to what we need in country if we are to see drastic changes in our NCDs outcomes. So, a lot of the information is what we are directly working on in terms of the changes that we want to see in country, especially looking at the development of the Nutrition Unit with the introduction of the My Plate, A Healthy Plate.”
At the end of the seminar, participants will be able to accelerate their country’s efforts for combating NCDs such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases through the implementation of the action plan.
The Seminar on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) Prevention and Control received support and participation from the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) and the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO).