Government plans to use savings from a proposed $1.2 billion debt buyback to fund health and nutrition initiatives.
These will include behavioral change programmes and regional food security efforts, with the goal of improving public health outcomes for the next three to five years.
This is according to Minister of Finance Ryan Straughn, who spoke at the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Barbados’ Childhood Obesity Prevention programme launch at the Bridgetown SDA Primary School on Wednesday.
Straughn noted that the Government spent more than $6.1 billion in health care over the last 15 years, and the ministry recently requested proposals for a debt for social swap, aimed at buying back $1.2 billion in debt with hopes of generating about $320 million in interest savings to be diverted to health expenditures.
He also said work was ongoing with other islands to strengthen regional food security efforts.
“We are working with Guyana and Suriname to be able to boost food security in the region because, at the end of the day, if Barbadians cannot have access to affordable nutritious quality foods then we will be defeating the purpose,” Straughn said.
The minister pointed out that almost one in two children are either overweight or obese and projections for Barbados showed that by 2050, 50 per cent of the population will be over 65.
“The reality is that if we are already facing a significant issue with non-communicable diseases and we have almost one in two children today who will face similar circumstances for a much longer part of their life, then it really is on us as a society to ensure that we genuinely arrest this problem,” Straughn said.
He argued that the same attention and intervention given to crime and violence was also needed to address the health issues.
Straughn also challenged the students to be the ones informing their families about the campaign and to get them on board with the health movement. ( AJ)
