Yvonne Ba­boolal

The in­fant mor­tal­i­ty rate in Trinidad and To­ba­go is among the high­est in the world.This was dis­closed at a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee meet­ing in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, be­fore which the Health Min­istry was called.Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr An­ton Cum­ber­batch said while there had been a steady im­prove­ment in in­fant mor­tal­i­ty in the coun­try over the last few years, the sta­tis­tics were bet­ter in oth­er Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries and in the world."The oth­er Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries, like Bar­ba­dos and Cu­ba and the small­er is­lands, have bet­ter sta­tis­tics than we do," he said.He added that the fig­ures were in sin­gle dig­its in de­vel­oped coun­tries while they were still in dou­ble dig­its in T&T.Ac­cord­ing to 2009 sta­tis­tics, in­fant mor­tal­i­ty in T&T was be­tween 15 and 17 per year.

Cum­ber­batch said the min­istry was work­ing to bring the fig­ures up to in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards."By 2020, we want to be in sin­gle dig­its but to get from 15 to nine re­quires a lot more," he added.He said the Min­istry was tak­ing steps to cor­rect this in de­liv­ery and an­ti-na­tal care.Fur­ther, he said, life ex­pectan­cy in de­vel­oped coun­tries like Japan and Cana­da was 80 years while in T&T it was 70.Cum­ber­batch said the Min­istry had em­barked on a dri­ve to ed­u­cate the pop­u­la­tion on prop­er nu­tri­tion, in par­tic­u­lar, on the need to watch fried foods, oil, sug­ar, salt and soft drinks."In­stead of fry­ing, you bake, broil or boil," he told the JSC.