The Pan American Health Organization –PAHO, wrapped up a four-day assignment in Saint Lucia on Thursday, February 9, providing technical assistance in a review of the National Integrated Health Surveillance Guidelines.
Stakeholders representing various government departments and non- governmental organizations participated in the review exercise offering their input towards the important Integrated Health Surveillance Guidelines. Facilitating the exercise was retired Medical Practitioner and Epidemiologist Dr. Mariano Boned.
According to the island’s National Epidemiologist Dr. Michelle Francios, “This visit was focused primarily on (the) roles and responsibilities of everybody within the national surveillance system of St Lucia. We hope in subsequent visits we continue to build on this document till we have guidelines which would strengthen our surveillance system nationally, as well as improve the level of data quality that we see, as well as produce that level of data quality that we seek to inform policies and decision making.”
Thursday’s stakeholder’s session involved a review of data collection methods and reporting mechanisms among other areas.
“The aim is to have it as an interactive document, and so it may be a lengthy process, but we are pushing ahead because Saint Lucia is but a pilot project right now and the hope is that it can be replicated. I am looking forward to the final document and to improving our surveillance system all around,” Dr. Francois said.
PAHO’s Country Programme Specialist for Saint Lucia, Reynold Hewitt says PAHO is pleased to be supporting the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs in the review and development of the National Integrated Health Surveillance Guidelines.
“We are playing a pivotal role in ensuring that the system here in Saint Lucia is strengthened so that they can monitor all events. When I say all events, I mean whether manmade or natural, be it a hurricane and the consequences of the hurricane in the country. We want the surveillance unit as the prerequisite tools to monitor these events when they happen in country,” Hewitt said.
“Data is important for management and policy decision making so we want to ensure that the health surveillance system has the relevant platform where they can collect data, collect it accurately and store it and produce it in a manner where it can help the policymakers to make the relevant decisions in-country, and for allocation of resources to respond to the needs of the population,” he added.
Another PAHO visit is carded for March 2023 during which other pillars of the National Integrated Health Surveillance Guidelines will be reviewed. PAHO is hoping that the final document could be utilized as a template in other countries.