Health Sector to receive massive Canadian Assistance
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Contact: Christopher Satney
Tuesday, October 23, 2007 – Government has sought the assistance of the Canadian Government to have health institutions on the island internationally certified. This was just one of the items negotiated by the island's health minister with Canadian and other governments, when he attended a Pan American Health Organisation Meeting recently.
Honourable Dr. Keith Mondesir conducted a press briefing on his recent meeting on Monday October 22nd, indicating the accreditation process will begin as soon as Canadian officials arrive on island in a few weeks time.
He said, “Accreditation is very important, especially when you are looking at Tourism. If you do not have a standard that tourists are happy and satisfied with, people will be very concerned about coming to your institutions. So we have asked them for an accreditation that will get us to at Canadian level, knowing our facilities are on par and meeting the standards required by the Canadian accreditation system. We will be accrediting Victoria Hospital, our health centres, our polyclinics and the mental health hospital.”
The Minister said the Canadian Government will also assist Saint Lucia in developing a disease management programme that will combat the rise in cases of non-communicable diseases, such as cancer and hypertension.
“We have asked them for assistance in training our doctors into specialisation. We have requested that we need some thirty specialists. It takes three years to get a specialised doctor to come from a regular medical practitioner to a specialist. We need time to give him or her a little experience, so that when our new hospital comes on stream, we will have our new specialist in that hospital,” said the Health Minister
The minister said he has also requested Canadian assistance for the new mental health hospital, in the form of training for personnel. A Canadian team, he said, will be here from the 8th of November and will be joined later by another group in early December to pursue these objectives. |
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