30 Jan 2019

Tsabong Sub-council members have been urged to incorporate health in all policies that it makes to help curb non-communicable diseases which are increasing at an alarming rate globally.

Tsabong Hospital chief nursing officer and head of preventative services, Ms Tootini Mackenzie on January 29 told councillors that health was an outcome of not only the biological factors, but of a wide range of conditions which included where people were born, grew up, lived, worked and aged.

“It is therefore important to recognise that these circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources which are influenced by policy choices that we make,” she said.

Thus she said, it was critical for councillors to ensure that every policy that they crafted should encompass health aspects.

She said contrary to the past, today heart diseases, diabetes, cancers and chronic respiratory diseases now affected young people who experienced premature deaths caused by non-communicable diseases in age groups 30-70 in the region.

She said globally, millions of productive people were lost to non-communicable diseases which was seriously a social and economic development.

To combat this, Ms Mackenzie buttressed the need to adopt a multi sectorial approach to changes and adjust policies across all sectors to advance human development and improve health outcome.

Promoting healthy lifestyles, she said, was best done at policy level with Ministry of Health and Wellness working with ministries of Finance and Development Planning, Agriculture and Food Resources, Transport, Education and Sports and Culture Development. 

This, she said would enable easier formulation of policies on ‘best buys’ such as offering the people subsidies on whole grain foods, increased levy on processed foods, promotion of open markets to increase access to vegetables and fruits intake as well as transformation of recreational parks into health parks to promote physical activity.

For his part, Ministry of Health and Wellness community health services representative, Mr Meshack Metswi also emphatically stated that promoting healthy lifestyles was best done by policy making authorities.

He said even though the health sector was mandated with health matters, most preventative policies fell within the domain of non-health sectors, hence the need for improvement of policies holistically in government to ensure healthy choices were made easily accessible to the people.

Responding to the call for Health in All Policies and non-communicable diseases, councillor Mock Ntau of Tsabong North called on the Ministry of Health and Wellness to closely work with the Ministry of Investment Trade and Industry to monitor imported goods through ensuring that they were not health hazards.

He said sometimes imported cattle feeds could contain dangerous chemicals which could pose serious health risks to meat consumers.

Councillor Kotlaemang Matswiri of Makopong, called on politicians to refrain from formulating policies which attract electorate while overlooking the health aspects.

“Politicians are notorious for making policies in their favour targeted at winning elections. 

When we draft our party manifestos, we must seek relevant expertise from researchers and scholars to ensure that we serve our people well,” he said. ENDS