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(Front row, from left) Chairman of the Productivity Council, Dr. Akhentoolove Corbin, alongside Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Senator Patrick Todd, during a church service to mark the official start of the Year of Productivity 2017 under the theme, ‘Get Up: Getting Everyone to Understand Productivity’ yesterday at the St. George Parish Church.

NCDs could be a contributing factor

 

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) continue to rank as one of the major health issues affecting the local population and this could be one of the main reasons why persons are taking so many sick days in Barbados.
 
Dr. Akhentoolove Corbin, Chairman of the Productivity Council, made this point as he spoke to the media after a church service to mark the official start of the Year of Productivity 2017 under the theme, ‘Get Up: Getting Everyone to Understand Productivity’ yesterday at the St. George Parish Church.
 
“Again, the other thing that we need to recognise is that Barbados has a serious rate of non-communicable diseases – high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, cancers among women (and) cancers among men. The rate of heart attacks in Barbados among males and females is high. The rate of strokes is also high.”
 
In fact, this island ranks high among those nations with a high level of these illnesses and one of the steps that can be taken by stakeholders is to see how best they can get employees to maintain a healthy work-life balance. The partners of the Council would play a key role here as they would have to work together with the Council to find practical solutions, he stated.
 
“So we think that even non-communicable diseases – why are we having such high non-communicable diseases? So I think that that in itself, if ... our rates are high by world standards, (then) we also really need to deal with the issue – maybe our lifestyle, the issue of work-life balance. I think that we need to help people and that is where the partners coming together can do it, so that people are not so stressed at work, so that people can have more peaceful and balanced work lives – hard at work, but you still have to balance it then, you know with just relaxing and having time to be calm. Then eating – are we eating improperly?”
 
The Chairman added that this list of stakeholders would not just include employers, employees and organisations charged with the responsibility of workplace management, but also the social partners such as the communities and churches.
 
“What is causing us to have such high rates of diabetes, high blood pressure? It could be genetic. I think that we need really to step back and to look seriously at these things as a whole and together, with not only as I said workers, but also the communities, the churches (and) other social groups, so that we come up with positive solutions to help to resolve the issues and not just saying that there is a problem. So our goal this year is really action focused and problem focused as we seek to encourage our partners to do things that can help us to improve productivity over time and to ensure that Barbados actually has greater sustainable economic growth.”

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