GUYANA will shortly craft legislation to address the risk factors of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
According to Health Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, this will work in accordance with the ministry’s goal in this regard.
“We are looking at tobacco legislation. One has already been drafted, and we are working on one for alcohol, but we are waiting on the new Parliament to make our move,” he posited.    
   The health minister has said that Guyana will be taking a more rigid approach to tackling this issue, since he believes that it is one which has been dominating the people’s health for far too long.
“More than sixty thousand persons are living with one or another of these diseases, and we have already begun works in this area, and we are moving along commendably,” he said.
He added that, with new interventions in the sector, there are already treatment guidelines that have been developed for cervical cancer, diabetes, and heart diseases, among other ailments.
“We have been training community health workers, medexes and other health workers to work with these guidelines, and we have been ensuring that medicines are accessible to persons on a routine basis,” Dr Ramsammy said.
   He pointed out that the sector has been improving its diagnostic capacity.
“Firstly, we have had improvement in the central lab; and secondly, we have been ensuring that the regional labs have reached the diagnostic capacity”.
With regard to prevention, he said that the awareness programmes set out by the ministry are now upgraded to ensure that people are educated on the risk factors associated with NCD’s.
Additionally, he said, the country is in tune with a nutrition strategy and is currently working along with Barbados to further enhance this.
 “Given that Guyana has been acting as a lead advocate on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), the steps being taken just show that progress is being made in this regard,” Ramsammy added.

   Guyana has been playing an active role in advancing the NCD agenda at the regional and global levels, including calling since 2001 for an MDG + to include globally-led agreements for the fight against the NCDs, and made it a focus during his presidency of the 61st Session of the World Health Assembly.
    Additionally, he said that Guyana has been working with the other member states of CARICOM to ensure a regionally coordinated response to NCDs. 

Over the last month, the Health Ministry has launched its workplace wellness programme in various non-governmental and governmental organisations throughout the country. The aim has been to make persons more aware of the risk factors to which they were exposed, and to highlight methods associated with NCDs.