A BAJAN?COUPLE in Long Island went shopping a Saturday morning recently, thinking about life together after more than 40 years of marriage.
Within 72 hours, the wife was dead after suffering a massive heart attack. Arrangements were being finalized for her funeral in Brooklyn this weekend.
More than a year ago, our new widower had to assist with funeral arrangements for a relative who had died from heart disease.
Several weeks ago, a Bajan died at a suburban hospital after a prolonged battle with cancer.
Almost every week, or so it seems, the Barbadian community in New York loses one of its own, not from a motor vehicle accident, crime of violence or from HIV/AIDS, but from a non-communicable disease: diabetes, heart or lung disease or cancer.
A similar thing is happening in Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean, so much so that on Monday Prime Minister Freundel Stuart told the United Nations: “It is estimated that one in every four Barbadians is affected by at least one of the NCDs” and if projections become a hard fact of life, “one in every three individuals” would be a victim by 2025.
Just last October, Barbados buried its Prime Minister David Thompson, who succumbed to pancreatic cancer.
Thirty-six million people die every year from NDCs. The diseases account for at least 60 per cent of the global death toll. An alarming 80 per cent of NCD deaths occur in low and middle-income countries.
That we have a global epidemic on our hands was the message Caribbean leaders, including Stuart, delivered to the UN this week during a two-day high level meeting of the UN General Assembly.
Speaking for CARICOM, Suriname’s President Desire Delano Bouterse told delegates from almost 200 countries about the good and bad news spawned by the epidemic.
The bad news: “Financial resources cannot match the high cost of treatment and care of these diseases,” Bouterse warned. “We are challenged by the commercialization, globalization and proliferation of unhealthy lifestyles, which will exponentially increase the number of patients.”
The “good”: “NCDs do not have to spell inevitable doom for our countries and peoples,” Bouterse said. “The scientific and other knowledge concerning the genesis and spread of these diseases, combined with the technical capacities which are available, certainly provide a basis” taking timely action.
The worldwide price tag for NCDs and mental ill health over the next 20 years, according to the World Economic Forum is US$47 trillion.
These figures underscore the need for the global plan. But what is also required is individual and corporate responsibility. Manufacturers, distributors and service providers like restaurants and supermarkets have to pay more attention to the content of the foods they offer the public.
Individuals must look after their health as well.