GUARDIAN ME­DIA NEWS­ROOM

The Min­istry of Health has launched a toll free 24-hour hot­line for non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (NCDs).

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from the Min­istry, the free ser­vice of­fers med­ical ad­vice and sup­port for in­di­vid­u­als who use home blood pres­sure or blood glu­cose mon­i­tors, and who have health-re­lat­ed ques­tions and con­cerns about ab­nor­mal read­ings, or any oth­er NCD re­lat­ed is­sues.

The Min­istry says the ser­vice is staffed with trained nurs­es and doc­tors.

“This tele-med­i­cine call cen­tre would pro­vide link­ages to care with fol­low up in­ter­ven­tions such as re­fer­rals to lo­cal health cen­tres, am­bu­lance ser­vices and emer­gency de­part­ments to fa­cil­i­tate ap­pro­pri­ate fol­low up care,” the re­lease said.

“This hot­line is a key com­po­nent of the Health Min­istry’s hy­per­ten­sion and di­a­betes self-man­age­ment ini­tia­tive. It is aimed at ad­dress­ing the in­creas­ing preva­lence of chron­ic dis­ease con­di­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” it added.

Per­sons will be able to ac­cess the hot­line, toll free, by call­ing 800-4NCD or 800-4623.