St. Kitts-Nevis Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Ter­rance Drew has held talks with the Di­rec­tor of the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO), Dr. Jar­bas Bar­bi­sa da Sil­va, on the ur­gent need to for­ti­fy pub­lic health sys­tems across Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS).

The bi­lat­er­al meet­ing was held on the side­lines of the 61st PA­HO Di­rect­ing Coun­cil meet­ing that be­gan at the PA­HO Head­quar­ters here on Mon­day, and it al­so high­light­ed the mat­ter of gun vi­o­lence, which Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Drew deemed a se­ri­ous pub­lic health cri­sis.

He re­called the state­ment of the US Sur­geon Gen­er­al re­gard­ing vi­o­lence, not­ing that St. Kitts-Nevis, along with oth­er Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­tries, would be look­ing at crime and vi­o­lence from a pub­lic health per­spec­tive.

He said that CARI­COM will be plac­ing this is­sue on its agen­da and seek­ing PA­HO’s as­sis­tance in push­ing this for­ward.

The dis­cus­sions al­so un­der­scored the crit­i­cal chal­lenges fac­ing SIDS, such as cli­mate-re­lat­ed health im­pacts, the bur­den of non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (NCDs), and the need for im­proved health­care in­fra­struc­ture and ac­cess to qual­i­ty ser­vices.

“Health is at the core of our na­tion’s de­vel­op­ment. Strength­en­ing our health sys­tems not on­ly en­sures the well-be­ing of our cit­i­zens but al­so en­hances our abil­i­ty to re­spond to crises, par­tic­u­lar­ly as we face the grow­ing threats posed by cli­mate change,” said Prime Min­is­ter Drew.

He al­so high­light­ed the twin is­land Fed­er­a­tion’s ef­forts to im­prove health­care de­liv­ery through dig­i­tal health ini­tia­tives, the build­ing of a smart hos­pi­tal, ex­pand­ed health­care train­ing, and part­ner­ships aimed at im­prov­ing dis­ease pre­ven­tion and con­trol. He stressed the im­por­tance of on­go­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with PA­HO in ad­dress­ing health in­equal­i­ties and prepar­ing the coun­try for emerg­ing health threats.

For his part, the PA­HO di­rec­tor reaf­firmed PA­HO’s com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing the gov­ern­ment’s health agen­da, not­ing that PA­HO would con­tin­ue to pro­vide tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance in ar­eas such as pan­dem­ic pre­pared­ness, uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age, and com­bat­ing the grow­ing preva­lence of NCDs.

A state­ment is­sued fol­low­ing the meet­ing said that it marked a sig­nif­i­cant step in deep­en­ing the re­la­tion­ship be­tween St. Kitts-Nevis and PA­HO, with both par­ties agree­ing on con­tin­ued co­op­er­a­tion to ad­vance the health and well­ness agen­da of the na­tion.

Mean­while, St. Kitts-Nevis has been se­lect­ed to serve on the PA­HO’s Gen­er­al Com­mit­tee of the 61st Di­rect­ing Coun­cil that plays a key role in over­see­ing the pro­ce­dures and struc­ture of PA­HO’s an­nu­al meet­ings, in­flu­enc­ing dis­cus­sions that dri­ve health pol­i­cy de­ci­sions across the Amer­i­c­as.

St. Kitts and Nevis’ in­clu­sion un­der­scores its in­creas­ing pres­ence in re­gion­al and glob­al health gov­er­nance, es­pe­cial­ly in the face of chal­lenges such as in­fec­tious dis­eases, cli­mate change, and health eq­ui­ty.

“This ap­point­ment to the Gen­er­al Com­mit­tee marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for St. Kitts and Nevis as we con­tin­ue to strength­en our role in glob­al health gov­er­nance. It is a tes­ta­ment to our grow­ing ca­pac­i­ty to in­flu­ence im­por­tant health poli­cies that will ben­e­fit not on­ly our peo­ple but al­so the wider Caribbean and the Amer­i­c­as,” said Prime Min­is­ter Drew.

“We are com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing that small is­land de­vel­op­ing states like ours have a voice in shap­ing the fu­ture of health­care, par­tic­u­lar­ly in ar­eas like pub­lic health pre­pared­ness and cli­mate re­silience,” he added.

WASH­ING­TON, Oct 1, CMC