Yvonne Ba­boolal

No longer will things be done in an ad hoc man­ner as was pre­vi­ous­ly done in the Min­istry of Health. The min­istry is em­bark­ing on a mas­sive da­ta col­lec­tion dri­ve which will guide all fu­ture plans, Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan an­nounced at yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing. Cab­i­net has ap­proved the es­tab­lish­ment of an epi­demi­ol­o­gy unit with­in the min­istry to col­lect and re­port da­ta in the health sec­tor, he said.

Pro­vid­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion for the pur­pose of the unit, Khan said, "In the de­vel­op­ment of health in­fra­struc­ture, we have to build hos­pi­tals, place equip­ment. We have to look at what type of re­search, if any, has been go­ing on in the health sec­tor." An­oth­er thing that has been plagu­ing the min­istry is the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the mor­bid­i­ty and mor­tal­i­ty of pa­tients (com­pli­ca­tions and death) as a re­sult of med­ical prac­tice, the min­is­ter said.

With the unit es­tab­lished, the min­istry would be in a bet­ter po­si­tion to know, he said.

He list­ed some of the ac­tiv­i­ties for which the unit will be re­spon­si­ble:

• The de­vel­op­ment of a com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases unit to col­lect and re­port da­ta on com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases;

• The de­vel­op­ment of a non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases unit to col­lect da­ta on dis­eases like hy­per­ten­sion, can­cers, kid­ney dis­eases, vas­cu­lar dis­eases.

The unit will au­dit and eval­u­ate the ef­fects of clin­i­cal out­comes to de­ter­mine the lev­el of mor­bid­i­ty and mor­tal­i­ty and, hope­ful­ly, de­crease the lev­el of ad­verse events in the health sec­tor, Khan said.

• There will be a re­search unit for en­cour­ag­ing clin­i­cal re­search in the health sec­tor, in­clud­ing pop­u­la­tion-based re­search out­side the sec­tor and to fa­cil­i­tate in­ter­na­tion­al re­search col­lab­o­ra­tion;

• A health in­for­ma­tion unit for ef­fi­cient in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy will be set up and there will be the de­vel­op­ment of a new da­ta base.

Khan fur­ther dis­closed that, at present, the Min­istry is em­bark­ing on the de­vel­op­ment and con­struc­tion of hos­pi­tals. Through the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank and the Min­istry of Fi­nance, the Health Min­istry is work­ing to de­vel­op a mas­ter plan for the Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do hos­pi­tals and the Er­ic Williams Med­ical?Sci­ences Com­plex, he dis­closed. Da­ta col­lect­ed by the epi­demi­ol­o­gy unit will as­sist in the de­vel­op­ment of this mas­ter plan.

There was al­so the need for a uni­ver­si­ty hos­pi­tal med­ical cam­pus, Khan said.