Region should exploit its good track record in public health

THE Caribbean region should take steps to exploit its good track
record in public health, by promoting regional destinations as the
best places for health tourism and the best places in which to live,
for those seeking to spend their days in retirement villages.

The suggestion came from Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley,
as she delivered the keynote address during the Organisation of
Eastern Caribbean  States’ (OECS) webinar yesterday, held under the
theme “Business Unusual: Recalibrating Business and National
Strategies for Economic Growth and Investment Creation”.

“The region needs to exploit its good track record in public health,
during this crisis. I have spoken over and over about how Barbados’
legacy to the Caribbean and to the rest of the world in the 20th
century in the area of health, was to produce a series of public
health giants – Sir Kenneth Standard, Sir Kenneth Stuart, Sir George
Alleyne and we can go on and on with the number of persons who made a
difference, not just at the regional level, but at the global
level,”Mottley remarked.

“This narrative will help support our tourism in general. We don’t
expect (advertisements) to be the only means of communicating to
people overseas. We need to do it through normal news media, normal
stories, journals, magazines and in those stories, give the world the
history of the Caribbean’s interaction with public health and
therefore, why we more than any other region are well-placed in terms
of health tourism and retirement villages, to be able to provide
opportunities for people who want somewhere to look,” she added.

Mottley however noted that during the current COVID-19 pandemic, there
are a number of lessons to be learnt and one is that Caribbean nations
must have a greater collaborative voice on the international stage.

She pointed out the struggle in getting certain key medical supplies
during the crisis, suggesting that countries in the region must fight
harder in the future for their own needs and take a stand, especially
when global leadership is lacking.

“When you get a crisis like this one, we have to observe critically
what did not turn out to be a problem and what did turn out to be a
problem for us. And I just mentioned market failure, I mentioned
inability to get access to critical in vitro diagnostic tests, be it
swabs, be it extraction kits, be it ventilators. We now know what it
is in true terms in the third decade of the 21st century, to be at the
bottom of the totem pole and we have to learn everything that we can
now and recognise that with this lockdown, that there is a lot that we
can learn,” Mottley asserted.

Pointing to the need for health security, amidst the need for food as
well as energy security, Mottley said, “The global food and energy
supply chains held up better than expected this time around. Maybe the
next time and believe you me, we are planning for it regionally and
internationally, but the emergency medical supply chain did not stand
up and this continues to be a particular problem for small states.”

“So that we have to take leadership in these international treaties
and definitional issues and cross-border movement of emergency medical
equipment. The question is now, with the vacuum in global leadership
in this issue, is there now a need to develop some kind of
international compact that guarantees access especially to small
states, guarantees them access to critical public health supply?”
Mottley commented. (RSM)