Anse La Raye Wellness Centre aims to enhance quality health services for chronic diseases

Castries, Saint Lucia: Anse La Raye Wellness Centre conducted a nutritional demonstration to spread awareness about chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Nurse Gabriel taught her clients about the preparation of healthy meals.

The Wellness Centre aims to improve the efficiency and accessibility to the quality health services in Saint Lucia. The facility is supported by the Health Systems Strengthening Project of the World Bank.

While addressing the clients during the demonstration at Anse La Raye Wellness Facility, Nurse Gabriel revealed that the health issues regarding high blood pressure, heart diseases, and diabetes are major obstacles in their health sector as many people reported being sick due to such diseases.

If sources are to be believed, it has been said that the mortality rate counted as 60 per cent due to diabetes, which is higher than the regional ratio. The non-communicable diseases lead to the deaths of a number of people on the island.

The Government of Saint Lucia understands the urgency of the reforms in the health sector. The authorities are seeking to increase the basic technologies in the health care centre. A World Bank-financed project is a part of this initiative.

Under this programme, medical practitioners such as Doctors and nurses will be honoured with rewards for contributing to the improvement of patient health and providing accessibility to a number of people in the country.

Some of the advantages of this programme are as follows,

• The performed-based financing proposed to Saint Lucia and it was designed in collaboration with Korea World Bank Partnership Facility
• The doctors and medical staff will be given an opportunity to visit South Korea and Colombia for study tours
• They will get expert advice from Argentina
• It provides an opportunity to exchange regional knowledge with other medical practitioners

The Performance-based financing expanded to almost nine wellness centres across the island nation. It aims to scale nationwide and cover all the thirty-four primary care health facilities in Saint Lucia.

The agenda of this initiative is to bring awareness and enhance the healthcare sector by providing quality health services, with primary focus for hypertension and diabetes at the primary health care level.