This coun­try has one of the high­est am­pu­ta­tion rates due to di­a­betes com­pli­ca­tions and to re­duce this, peo­ple need to ad­just their tastes and lifestyles, sub­sti­tut­ing floury, oily and sug­ary meals for more healthy food and should al­so get mov­ing

The in­for­ma­tion and ad­vice came from Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

He was re­spond­ing to queries from Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Rai Rag­bir on whether or not there is a new Strate­gic Plan for the Pre­ven­tion and Con­trol of Non-Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Dis­eases, as the 2017-2021 plan re­cent­ly ex­pired.

Deyals­ingh, who de­tailed the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach to the man­age­ment of non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (NCDs), added, “A new NCD Strate­gic Plan for 2023 and be­yond is cur­rent­ly in the for­ma­tive stages.”

Apart from fill­ing the po­si­tion of an NCD di­rec­tor, Deyals­ingh said the NCD Strate­gic Plan is con­tin­u­ous­ly be­ing im­ple­ment­ed with up­dates.

“And sev­er­al ad­di­tion­al ini­tia­tives are cur­rent­ly be­ing planned for roll-out in­clud­ing the con­duct of the sec­ond Risk Fac­tor Sur­vey for T&T, the com­ple­tion of the NCD clin­i­cal guide­lines for di­a­betes and hy­per­ten­sion; and the de­vel­op­ment of the Na­tion­al NCD Reg­istries for di­a­betes, hy­per­ten­sion and car­diac care.”

He said the de­vel­op­ment of ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes is on­go­ing. All hos­pi­tals are al­so out­fit­ted with the “T&T Moves” slo­gan: eat more fruit and veg­eta­bles, move more, drink more wa­ter.

“These three sim­ple things ... if we start to sub­sti­tute wa­ter for sug­ar-based bev­er­ages, sub­sti­tute more fruits and veg­eta­bles for food that are calo­rie-rich but nu­tri­ent-poor - like sug­ar, flour, trans­fats, fries— if we do this and every­thing in some mod­er­a­tion, we can sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce NCDs in T&T,” he said.

Among mea­sures since 2017, Deyals­ingh not­ed last month’s con­sul­ta­tion and up­scal­ing of the NCD Di­a­betes Foot Pre­ven­tion and Man­age­ment of In­fec­tion Ini­tia­tive.

Out of that pro­gramme, Deyals­ingh said, “We’ve come up with a strate­gic plan to re­duce the rate of am­pu­ta­tions by about 20 per cent by 2023 be­cause we have one of the high­est rates of am­pu­ta­tions due to com­pli­ca­tions of di­a­betes when peo­ple don’t take care of their feet.”

While Gov­ern­ment’s mov­ing proac­tive­ly, he added, “We need buy-in from the pub­lic to ad­just their tastes and lifestyles and do things in mod­er­a­tion. We’re not ask­ing peo­ple to di­et, we’re ask­ing peo­ple to sub­sti­tute some of these floury, oily, sug­ar-sweet­ened prod­ucts for healthy op­tions and just get mov­ing.”

Deyals­ingh al­so said there was no chron­ic short­age of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals in the coun­try. He al­so con­firmed the pro­cure­ment of PAXLOVID and MOL­NUPI­RAVIR (Mer­ck) to treat COVID-19 pa­tients is be­ing pur­sued di­rect­ly from the re­spec­tive man­u­fac­tur­ers and through a Cari­com arrange­ment. Both op­tions are still in the ne­go­ti­a­tion stage.