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The SLMDA/UWI held its 14th Annual Conference opening ceremony on Friday October 5th 2018 at the Bay Gardens Hotel under the theme "Health Education and Social Equity in Healthcare"
Local, regional and international experts were invited to make presentations to a targeted audience of about 100 particpants who included, doctors, nurses and pharmacists to name a few.
The president of the Association Dr. A. St. Rose gave the following address:
President’s Address @ 14th Annual SLMDA/UWI 2017 Conference
Mr. Master of Ceremonies, Dr Charles Greenidge, Hon. Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Philip J. Pierre, Hon. Minister of Health, Ms. Mary Isaac, Distinguished keynote speaker (Associate Professor SAS, SGU), Mr. Damian Greaves; Representative of UWI, Dr. Natasha Sobers; Executive and Members of the SLMDA; Specially invited guests; Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome.
Last year’s theme, Re-creating, Re-educating and Re-defining the Boundaries I explained, spoke to the notion of “CHANGE”.
Change to inspire a commitment that drives the urgency of a call to action. That call, that mission was healthcare. A call rooted in matters of conscience, ethics, values, standing up for what is right, what is just and what is equitable in our sphere. Our healthcare ought to reflect our profession and its inextricable link to the very existence of our society.
This year’s theme no less thought provoking perhaps in more ways than one:
Health Education and Social Equity in Healthcare speaks to critical components of a very dynamic and complex social, political and economic matrix.
Health education is aimed at driving behavioral changes that ought to translate to net positive healthy outcomes that ultimately will impact our lives individually, our communities collectively and our nation holistically.
Equity in health seeks to address the underlying systemic differences of opportunity, distribution and access to social resources and assets in healthcare. Our needs do vary widely but as a society we’re all committed to the idea of collective solidarity as we are certainly stronger together. How then do we as professionals address these issues?
To the extent that our citizens are unable to capture, internalize and understand health information and the services necessary to make informed and appropriate health decisions, we as healthcare professionals cannot be at peace with ourselves.
Therefore, we must relentlessly pursue advocacy for improving health literacy in addition to eradicating the unjust and unfair health disparities - all consequences of poor governance and bad health policies.
Any intervention that seeks to fragment or divide us as a people, or a collective is meant to promote inequality and is contrary to the rules and ideals of social equity.
Therefore, of necessity, the national dialogue on healthcare in general and more specifically on our urgent healthcare crisis is a holistic conversation that must be had, framed and led on intelligence, integrity, transparency, professionalism and honesty rather than the peddling of post-truths, alternative facts and yes lies.
The latter strategy is a rapidly emerging phenomenon of deception, crassness and buffoonery aimed at sowing the seeds of doubt and confusion to cloud rational public judgement. The end point being an emotional rather than a logical, objective response and reasoning.
The saying…if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu…is alive and well as it reflects the harsh realities of our circumstances, that if you are not represented at the decision-making table then you are in a most vulnerable position to get trampled upon or worse yet, decisions will be made for you.
As a professional body we must be given the opportunity to collectively engage and appropriately mould healthcare policies to positively influence greater social harmony, transcend petty politics and impact all citizens equitably.
We therefore have to be cautious, as in keeping silent, keeping our heads down and working in our respective practices or jobs, while ignoring the noise around us, we may be surprised to wake up from our slumber one day, to find that we are no longer relevant in our own profession, with people who know nothing about our profession setting the standards and making the critical decisions for us.
We must also appreciate and understand that it is our lack of engagement and participation to stand up and fight for what is right, for ourselves and in the best interest of the public that causes the powers-that-be to see us as expendable, thereby attempting to treat us with disrespect and malevolence.
That right of every citizen to quality, equitable, affordable and accessible healthcare is the moral, social, humane and dignified responsibility of the government of the day and every succeeding government to secure and guarantee for all its people but especially for the poor, the elderly, the unemployed, the vulnerable and challenged and the hard-working middle-class citizens.
But more succinctly, when we hear the government pronouncing that health and education too, ought no longer to be considered a social good but rather a driver of the economy…context becomes everything. That represents for all of us a fundamental policy shift to dissocialize health and education towards privatization, which begs the question…economic driver for whom? The public and the public interest or the investor?
I humbly submit to you and to every St. Lucian that the two competing ideas in this economic and politically expedient policy narrative are not mutually exclusive. The social good arising out of a properly derived health and education policy structure should have as its end point a superior human resource capacity-building which can now be used innovatively and entrepreneurially to energize and drive a sustainable and productive economy.
I further submit that human capital is the single most important basis of competitive advantage in today’s knowledge-based economy. The privatization of our health and education spaces will only serve to widen the disparity and inequity gaps through its naturally built-in lack of equal opportunity framework.
The real tragedy being that the least privileged groups in society are the ones who will experience the greatest reductions of their possibilities to optimize and maximize their lives and potentials. It is for this reason that reductions of social inequities in health must be an important aspect of shaping public health policies and initiatives.
How then can it be acceptable that the public is made to bear the brunt of the burden as a principal, the guarantor and the underwriter of a privatization construct, local or foreign, that feeds off it yet holds itself above the rules of being subjected to the test of transparent public scrutiny?
It must never be that the trustees or recipients of public funds or assets are allowed to play fast and loose with the public purse simply because profits will outweigh any potential consequences.
How then does a government against that background, promote the idea of confidence in its people’s ability to grow and develop capacity to drive their economy in their best interest?
You see the distribution of money (financial considerations), power and resources is at the heart of the matter here. They have the potential to corrupt many things, medicine included, and by extension our professionalism… that moral ideal that defines our professional behavior and practice.
SLMDA’s position on the issue of privatization in healthcare and especially with reference to our two most valuable public health assets (OKEU and SJH) is an emphatic and unequivocal NO! The social good must take primacy over privatization and profiteering in that regard.
So, any government that seeks to negotiate public funds and assets in any but the very best interest of the people who have placed them in the seat of decision-making and power is proverbially biting the hand that feeds them.
The role of major stakeholders like SLMDA, must be taken seriously both in shaping the appropriate healthcare policy direction and defending the public healthcare space, (its confidence, its trust and its best interest).
The alarm bells sounded by the SLMDA were messages referencing what lies at the core of our critical healthcare space, no doubt a powerful message, resonated in such a manner as to unite a people across political lines; that’s an undeniable fact. Thank you, St. Lucia, we know that you are paying close attention.
It is no coincidence that I have adopted the inclusion of education alongside healthcare because I truly believe that they represent two most valuable assets to empower a people towards liberation. Today, 5th October is celebrated as World Teacher’s Day, under the UNESCO theme: “The right to education means the right to a qualified teacher”.
Unfortunately, our health and education spaces are akin to a non-compliant patient, refusing to take his medication, deliberately and calculatedly so. And so, the paradox is that while we are living in times of extraordinary opportunities we are also living in times of unprecedented anxieties.
And so, it is my hope that coming out of these two days of social and educational interaction will be the jolting of consciences as to how we can not only better engage publicly to impart knowledge, but also to see the relevance of advocating for social equity and justice in healthcare.
This healthcare crisis represents a watershed moment for our country in many ways and so colleagues, St. Lucia you do not want to miss this historical opportunity to participate as it is your future and that of generations to come that hangs in the balance of healthcare uncertainties.
President (SLMDA)
