As people across the globe marked World Autism Awareness Day today, Barbadians were not left out. Blue was the hue of the day as individuals wore the colour designated for autism. This evening, members of the Autism Association of Barbados and representatives of both the House of Assembly and Senate converged at the Parliament Buildings which were lit up in the colour which is also associated with calmness and acceptance. Family members Nadia, Aidan, and Robert Simmons were among those in attendance for the lighting up.

(Photo by Jeffrey Bishop)

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The Unit will visit Field Road, Factory Avenue, Parkinson Field, Rock Avenue, Rock Close, Wildey Road, Wildey Garden, Terrace Road, East Terrace Avenues Nos 1 to 3, Newton Crescent, St Ann’s Road, and neighbouring districts on Tuesday, April 2.

The following day, Wednesday, April 3, Villa Road, Valerie Housing Area, Collymore Rock Main Road, McClean Gap, Brittons Cross Road, Mission Gap, Layne’s Road, Perkins Road, Seaman Road, Millyard Road, Knights Road, and Scotts Gap will be sprayed.

On Thursday, April 4, the team will go to Villa Road, Warner Road, Liverpool Road, Reece Road, London Road, Burkes Road, and surrounding communities.

The fogging exercise for the week will conclude on Friday, April 5, in Reece Road Nos 1 to 3, Flag Staff, Streats Road (both sides), Ifill Road (both sides), and Highgate Gardens.

Fogging takes place from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. daily. Householders are reminded to open their windows and doors to allow the spray to enter. Children should not be allowed to play in the spray.

Members of the public are advised that the completion of scheduled fogging activities may be affected by events beyond the Unit’s control. In such circumstances, the Unit will return to communities affected in the soonest possible time.

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He said the implementation of the National Strategic Plan for NCD Control (2023-2030) reflects this urgency by providing a comprehensive framework consisting of eight priority areas, aimed at tackling the rising burden of NCDs.

“More specifically, the strategic plan emphasises the reduction of risk factors such as tobacco use, unhealthy consumption of alcohol, poor nutrition, and sedentary lifestyles; through educational initiatives and policy interventions targeting communities, schools, and workplaces,” he said as he addressed the National Nutrition Centre’s Nutrition Conference, held under the theme Good Nutrition: A Prescription for NCD Prevention and Control, on Wednesday, at the Radisson Aquatica Resort.

“The plan also highlights the importance of NCD self-management and improving healthcare-provider interactions, with a focus on empowering patients and caregivers. Additionally, childhood obesity prevention efforts are prioritised through educational campaigns and creating supportive environments, particularly within schools. This healthier environment is centred on promoting appropriate levels of physical activity, front-of-package warning labels, and restricting the marketing of unhealthy products to children.”

He added that it was imperative to involve persons living with NCDs in these efforts to ensure “inclusivity and responsiveness to their needs”.

(BGIS)

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As pieces of medical equipment from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s Shaw Centre for Pediatric Excellence (SCPE) were being donated to the Frederick ‘Freddie’ Miller Polyclinic, Glebe, St George on Thursday, SCPE Barbados Director Dr Clyde Cave said there needed to be a refocused approach to monitoring early health challenges in children.

Far too often, parents would only take their children to be accessed during specific times of their early life, particularly surrounding their primary school enrolment, or when preparing to set the 11-plus examination, he told reporters.

“I think we are missing an area of monitoring the development of our children, which can be done by a trained person whenever you see them, but in our immunisation schedule we see them in the first year and then the second year and then we don’t see them again until four years of age. So between two and three, there are things there that can be picked up on a screen,” Dr Cave said.

“For immunisations, we don’t see them again before 11-plus, and there are things that are going on there that straddle health and education, school health systems, and those kinds of areas which are, perhaps to some parents, nontraditional medical issues.”

Dr Cave added that while some physical and health issues in children might manifest early on and have an impact on their learning abilities, parents far too frequently avoid seeking an examination.

“The first place you think of taking your eight-year-old child who may have had a change in school performance, may not often be the polyclinic or the paediatrician, but oftentimes that is where we can start the assessment. It could be something physical like hearing or vision, it could be something that we are now detecting like dyslexia or attention deficit disorder.

“In the younger ones, we are seeing more children on the autism spectrum. We don’t want to wait until 11-Plus when that problem has become ingrained and so difficult that change gets harder. We want a spectrum of monitoring children who are well or have identified problems so that we can make every Barbadian child the best that they can be,” he said.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Arthur Phillips said early signs of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and other health issues more commonly found in adults can often be detected in young children.

He said: “While it is true that most NCDs still present in older persons, there are things that we can detect in children that would allow us to intervene and make a difference. In particular issues around potentially detecting children who may have raised blood pressure. Very uncommon but possible. So if we do detect raised blood pressure in children, we can try to understand the causes and intervene early.

“That is one of the ways in which this donation may assist, and then of course our continued interest in childhood obesity. This equipment allows us to continue and strengthen our effort in terms of monitoring child development.”

Minister of Health Senator Dr Jerome Walcott, praised SCPE – the government’s partnership with Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) – for its donation of medical equipment and resources to primary healthcare institutions.

“There was a time where in primary healthcare in communities we were second to only Cuba in the region. In terms of our reach and the involvement of medical staff and nursing staff in the communities. We’ve recognised that we need to refurbish and probably expand some of these facilities to do greater outreach and provide greater services in the primary care setting,” he said.

“We need equipment, we need extra human resources and trained resources, and of course we need research. This project covers all of those.”

(SB)

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The medical official made the announcement to reporters following the donation of medical equipment from the Shaw Centre for Pediatric Excellence – a partnership between the government and Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) – to the Frederick ‘Freddie’ Miller Polyclinic at The Glebe, St George.

While acknowledging that salt intake is a crucial contributor to high blood pressure and other chronic diseases, he said current research on taxing salt would have little discernible effect.

“In terms of the salt tax, this is something that was raised as a potential consideration, and the Ministry of Health was asked to submit documentation in terms of our position and recommendations and we have done so. In short, our view is that there is limited evidence of the potential effectiveness of a salt tax in our current setting and that the approach to dealing with excessive consumption of salt needs to be holistic. Dealing with public awareness, dealing with availability, those are the sort of drivers that we would want to focus on in terms of reducing consumption in Barbados.

“We feel that a salt tax would not have a major role to play in dealing with salt consumption in Barbados at this time, and that’s what we have indicated,” the deputy CMO said.

He said the 20 per cent excise tax on sugary drinks, which has been attributed to a decline in the sales of sodas, was different from any possible salt tax, given the number of products that can easily be found to contain added sugar.

Dr Phillips said: “With sugar-sweetened beverages, you have a defined set of products that are relatively easy to identify and to tax in terms of their tariff codes for importation. Salt is co-consumed in products, it’s a very cheap item, and so it presents itself in a wide variety of areas, and the literature unfortunately around salt tax has not indicated that it is an easy intervention to design and implement and that it is effective as a measure for reducing salt consumption.”

He added that stakeholders were still looking into the possibility of using the revenue collected from the sugar tax, to help offset prices on healthier options.

“There has been some specific work done with the Sweetened Beverage Committee and with colleagues from UWI [University of the West Indies], looking at potential cross-subsidies, potentially using some of the revenue generated by the sugar-sweetened beverage tax to then further assist in making healthier items of food more affordable,” Dr Phillips said. (SB)  

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Amidst the controversy, the school’s board chairman Dr Donley Carrington appealed for parents, teachers, staff, and education officials to work together harmoniously to provide the best possible learning experience for students.

After a walkthrough at the Cane Garden, St Thomas school with officials including Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw and others, Democratic Labour Party spokeswoman on education Felicia Dujon claimed there were two reports on the latest tests, but only one was widely circulated. She said the circulated document had “a missing page” and demanded the full report be made public.

Many parents had also contacted the media with the same complaint about a missing page.

In response, Dr Archer-Bradshaw showed reporters the 10-page report she had from Ian Weekes of Environmental Comfort and Safety Solutions Limited, the company that conducted the tests. She denied any pages were missing from the report.

Dr Carrington told Barbados TODAY there were indeed two report documents from Weekes. But, he stressed the “missing page” allegation was misleading, clarifying it was a paragraph that was omitted, not an entire page.

“Neither the board nor the ministry would have tampered with or removed any information from the report,” Carrington said. He explained there was a longer and shorter version of the same report, both received as Portable Document Format files (PDFs) by the board which forwarded them as received.

The paragraph in question theorised about possible symptoms from high volatile organic compound (VOC) exposure for chemically sensitive individuals. Carrington said he believes Weekes may have removed it from the second version to avoid confusion since it did not relate to the findings.

VOCs are organic chemicals that can vaporise into the air and are found in many products including pesticides, paint, varnish, wax, and cleaning products. VOCs can also be found in refrigerants and fuel fumes.

Both reports’ key findings were the same – that based on all tests of each building, drainage system, and a nearby cave, “there was no venting of any sewer gases” at the school.

Barbados TODAY obtained a copy of the report. The disputed section reads: “These levels are applicable to normal individuals; they are not applicable to chemically sensitive individuals. Specific production operations may exceed these levels due to the presence of one or more compounds characteristic of a specific operation. In those cases, it is recommended that OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) or NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) limits be used for those individual compounds and that they not be included in the total volatile organic value. Exposure effects – eye and respiratory irritation, headaches, drowsiness, nausea, general malaise, etc.”

However, Carrington said that what was important was that both reports had the same findings, which stated that based on all the tests done on each block and drainage system at Lester Vaughan, including a nearby cave system, “there was no venting of any of the sewer gases”.

The board chair explained that Weekes’ services were only acquired to verify that a previous environmental study was accurate.

Carrington said Weekes was hired to verify the results of a prior environmental study, after a plumbing company’s two tests – the first finding defects in the sewerage system that were then repaired, with a second successful smoke test showing the systems were properly sealed.

He noted this was the third environmental report in a short period, suggesting another may be needed to determine why students and staff have fallen ill since the latest two reports confirmed no sewer gas leaks on the compound.

The school has been closed for four weeks, with online classes. Carrington hopes fourth and fifth formers can return next week for extra lessons over the Easter break to prepare for exams.

During the walkthrough, principal Suzette Holder showed the sealed sewerage systems to officials. Dr Carl Ward, representing the Chief Medical Officer, said he was pleased with what he observed.

Meantime, the meeting that was scheduled to be held virtually on Thursday evening with parents was called off due to challenges associated with the online platform.

The meeting was to go through the findings of the environmental test and talk about the possibility of reopening the school next week.

The Zoom call only allowed 100 participants to log in and PTA president Sheena Headley said that it was only fair that all interested parents had the opportunity to participate in the session and air their concerns.

Weekes, who conducted the latest environmental test, also experienced some technical difficulties.

“Therefore, at the request of the PTA president, the meeting will be deferred to a day next week when all parents can be accommodated,” the Ministry of Education said in a press release. “At that time, Mr Weekes will be back on island and will be able to explain the report and address any concerns.”

It added that parents would be informed of the date and time for the rescheduled in-person meeting.

sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb

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Independent Senator Christopher Maynard, a noted ear, nose and throat surgeon, told fellow lawmakers that the country was responsible for the state of healthcare and all must work to fix it. This repair job cannot be remedied by the government alone, the board of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital or the staff, he said.

A visit to the QEH Accident and Emergency Department on Saturday led him to recall the Bible verse, “Jesus wept”, he said in the debate on the Appropriation Bill for the new fiscal year that begins on Monday.

“There are some obligations that the government needs to meet. My visit to the A&E was after 8 p.m. but there was no place in the hospital to buy food at 8 p.m. The cafeteria closes at 3. We cannot have a 24-hour hospital and you can’t get food at night,” he said.

Of QEH staff, the surgeon-lawmaker said: “We have to demand that those who are to work, work and produce. Those who we pay large sums of money have to come to work. And we have to make some hard, harsh decisions on how to sanction those who don’t come to work and who don’t produce.”

Noting that Barbadians pay a three per cent health levy which has raised about $70 million annually for the hospital’s operations, he added: “It’s a nice insurance policy to the QEH and I think we can do far better than we are doing but somebody has to truly take responsible at an executive level and make sure it’s done.”

Senator Maynard said while the experience of COVID-19 meant that there were changes with working from home, this is not an option for healthcare workers who must show up in person.

“There are people who believe you can be a full-time healthcare worker from home, but the reality is that you can’t [be]. People need in-person interaction,” he said, adding that compassion has disappeared since the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said when the government, during the pandemic, made the correct decision to curtail certain services at the QEH and continued to pay the staff in full, it created a problem.

“It meant that those who continued to work had more time to themselves. They were not at the beach because you couldn’t go to the beach, but you were busy seeing patients. The pandemic is declared over, and you now have to ask those persons who had reassigned their time to realise that they do have another job and to come back to work and produce.”

He suggested that methods must be found to create the enthusiasm that is needed to work in a system that has gotten worse and is more difficult to work in.

The senator also pleaded for a system which guarantees food availability at the hospital over 24 hours: “It cannot be that you can expect the place with the largest number of government workers under one roof not to have access to food. When it happens that there is a disaster and you have to stay in the hospital, the problem still exists. So, you are expected to provide care while you starve.”

Whoever gets such a contract, he added, must be set a minimum level for the provision of meals in a facility that caters to people all day.

He called on the Minister of Health Senator Jerome Walcott, to fix the meals issue.

Senator Maynard also addressed the situation at the hospital outpatient clinics which he said has always been overcrowded. He recalled that when he returned from Jamaica 40 years ago, he had become accustomed to a certain level of functioning in Jamaica that was the same here but was surprised back then to observe two doctors seeing patients in one room with no privacy for the consultations which could clearly be overheard.

“Forty years on and the same thing is happening. It means that successive governments, over and over again, have done nothing to fix it,” he declared.

Senator Maynard said he hoped with the expansion of the QEH services across the road at the Elmore compound as outlined by the health minister, this situation would be changed.

But he said the short-term solution may be to use porta cabins from which to conduct some services and alleviate the overcrowding.

The healthcare professional said the system plagued by the exodus of doctors and nurses and low morale must be transformed into an environment where professionals see the benefits of staying, and he encouraged the health ministry to do everything to improve the lot of healthcare workers.

(SP)

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By Ryan Gilkes

Nearly a year after the Barbados School Nutrition Policy was introduced, the head of the committee overseeing its rollout said vendors operating on the fringe of school campuses as well as contraband smuggling of banned drinks are undermining the policy’s goal of better student well-being.

Hedda Phillips-Boyce, chair of the Barbados School Nutrition Policy Implementation Committee, told the second National Nutrition Centre Nutrition Conference on Wednesday that itinerant vendors and “brown bag” sneaking of prohibited beverages among teachers were among several challenges to the policy in need of urgent attention.

Teachers who felt themselves above the nutrition policy are “digging [their] grave with [teeth]”, she declared, warning that chronic illnesses among staff only added to their workload.

“Our problem is where the students are giving their support to vendors out of school,” Phillips-Boyce said. “We’re going to undermine this initiative if you do not address the vendors. The change can be made but we need to have those vendors addressed.”

While progress has been made in reducing soda availability in schools, a new issue has arisen with the prevalence of drinks containing artificial sweeteners. 

“We now have to look at which is the worst devil,” she said, acknowledging the need to address this emerging concern through education. “We’re seeing this sneaking in and I really believe that with the canteen concession . . . it is because of education. They’re not aware that this is what is happening. So, education is so important.”

Phillips-Boyce also discussed non-compliance among parents and teachers, emphasising the importance of rigorous monitoring and enforcement. She shared anecdotes of students selling non-compliant foods with some parents supporting this behaviour, as well as instances of teachers consuming prohibited beverages on campus.

She said: “The nutritionist I usually work with, we went to a particular school and the canteen concessionaire told us that he keeps a particular beverage in the canteen for the teachers. So, he will give the teachers this particular drink in the brown bag. We can’t have that. We need to have the teachers model their behaviour. All adults should be modelling their behaviour. We’ve even had a parent or two – not many; a lot of them understand where we’re going with this policy –… state that they felt very offended that the government wants to tell them how to feed their child. So that’s the type of person that we have to contend with.

“[We have] heard of a child who has been selling contraband . . .  foods that are non-compliant. These children are few and far between but these are stories that you need to hear. They have been selling items that the canteen concessionaire cannot sell or should not sell…. In one case, they were supported by the parents.”

The committee chair underscored the need for a unified approach involving educators modelling appropriate behaviour and addressing vendors operating outside schools to provide healthier options.

She said while some teachers are on board the policy, “unfortunately, we have some who think the policy is for the students and not for them”. 

“But education is important because if the teachers are ill, they have to do more substitution. There is more work on them because their colleagues are ill . . . We’re digging our grave with our teeth. That is a fact,” Phillips-Boyce warned.

She also stressed the significance of early intervention, commending nursery schools’ proactive efforts and stressing ongoing education and outreach, including collaborating with organisations like the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Barbados and leveraging social media platforms.

“The best practices with regards to dietary practices need to be shared with the population. . . . you have to do what you have to do to get that message out there on social media. Our younger children use social media to get their messaging and that is something to consider,” she said. “We are making inroads. I am seeing a change… but you have to start somewhere.” (RG)

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The Ministry of Health and Wellness has advised that there will be no child health clinic this Saturday, March 30, as previously publicised.
The Ministry regrets any inconvenience caused and reminds parents/guardians that they should attend the regular child health clinics at polyclinics during the weekdays to bring their children’s vaccinations up to date.

(BGIS)

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According to the president of the Barbados Association of Retired Persons (BARP), Marilyn Rice-Bowen, a canvas of their membership has highlighted concerns about insufficient pension funds for many retirees, with some receiving less than $1 000 per month as inflation eats into their pensions.

“And what a lot, quite a few seniors always say to us [is] if they only knew… and then there were situations where people would say to us that they didn’t expect to live to 60, 65. When they were 26 and 28, they didn’t expect to live to 60 and 65, so they never planned. In addition to that, there are people who just simply didn’t plan for retirement,” she said over the weekend at the launch of BARP’s Towards 2050 conference which will be held on April 6.

Rice-Bowen said many seniors had not adequately prepared for retirement, leading to financial strain in their later years.

“As we speak now of the 40s, the 40s to 59s, that’s why it’s so important that we are driving them. We’re not going to bully but we are going to drive them, we’re going to encourage them to plan. That’s why it’s so important they plan because if they do not plan, they’re going to find themselves in a really strange and very uncomfortable space when they reach our age, my age.”

Her comments were supported by Elder Affairs Minister Kirk Humphrey, who underscored the importance of incentivising retirement planning but emphasised the need for individual responsibility.

“But I do think that the whole planning process requires everybody. I think people need to plan individually. And I do think it makes sense to incentivise, from the public sector standpoint, persons to be able to do it. It just makes sense,” he said. “I think you have to find a way to balance what you can afford financially and what society needs to be able to afford. But I anticipate and I look forward to the day when we’re in a position to do something like that again.”

Rice-Bowen stressed the importance of planning and urged individuals to attend seminars and seek guidance on retirement planning, emphasising the need for proactive financial management.

“So, rather than say, ‘we can wait to see if the government gives me a tax incentive for the rebate on pension plans’, if it’s not happening, go ahead, and put your money in your pension plan because you will be the beneficiary. If it does happen along the way, well, it’s gravy. But do not sit and wait for the frills. Get involved and do it yourself,” she urged.

Meanwhile, Humphrey said the social services in Barbados have had to evolve as a result of the challenges posed by an ageing population.

According to him, Barbados has been witnessing a notable increase in the number of older individuals seeking support from welfare services, adding that his Ministry of People’s Empowerment and Elder Affairs, which is responsible for social services on the island, is aware of the need for proactive measures to address this trend.

“The shifting, the transition in society is impacting all the delivery of social services. I think the other thing that we have to be mindful of in social services is that the cost of caring for a child is not the same as the cost of caring for an older person,” he said.

“If you’re caring for a senior person, it costs maybe two or three times as much. We’re going to anticipate that even our budget has to increase because caring for older persons is a lot more expensive. The capacity to care is going to shift.”

(RG)

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