In dealing with NCDs: ‘Become everyday revolutionaries’

Public Health medical director Dr. Dan Lamar capped the two-day CNMI NCD Training Tuesday with a call to the public to become “everyday revolutionaries” when dealing with non-communicable diseases.

“What I’m asking of you all is to be nothing short of revolutionaries,” Lamar told over 100 health care professionals, administrators, and other community members.

The CNMI NCD Training, held on Aug. 29 and 30 at the Pacific Islands Club Charley’s Cabaret and Annex Room, was organized by the Department of Public Health to discuss causes, impacts, and risks of NCDs.

NCDs are conditions that are not communicated through infection but generally come about due to lifestyles: how people eat, how active they are, and their habits in general. NCDs include diabetes, cancer, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, stroke, gout, arthritis, and depression.

Featured presenters at the training included Dr. Jacqui Webster of The George Institute for Global Health in Australia; Dr. Annette David of the Guam Cancer Coalition, Dr. David Khorram of the Marianas Eye Institute; Dr. Gary Ramsey of the Wise Women Village Project; and Pam Carhill of the Marianas Health Services.

Lamar’s concept of everyday revolutionaries was derived from John Robbins, the bestselling author of Healthy at 100: The Scientifically Proven Secrets of the World’s Healthiest and Longest-Lived Peoples.

“We all need to stop being complacent about this and become everyday revolutionaries. We can accept the way things are and just kind of lapse into the cultural trends or we can see things as they really are and recognize that it’s not going to change unless we do something about it,” Lamar told Saipan Tribune at the training on Tuesday.

John Tagabuel, the deputy secretary for public health administration, said the rising incidence of NCDs on the islands has become alarming.

Tagabuel pointed out that the island culture and traditional family practices are major factors in the increasing number of patients and the one of the reasons for the high mortality rate on the islands.

He revealed that more than half of 150 dialysis patients in the CNMI were determined to have pre-existing conditions. Insular areas, he said, are among the top 10 in the world with the highest rate of diabetic and obese people.

“It’s about time to think outside of the box because we really need to move forward. Change has to start in the family and in the community to make it happen,” said Tagabuel.

Lamar said that NCDs are a result of an unhealthy lifestyle that is “conditioned by commercialism” with the availability of foods in local stores that contribute to such diseases.

“But we do have choices,” noted Lamar. “We need to demand [that] healthier choices be made convenient. It’s often not convenient for us to make healthy choices so we need to demand to make it convenient to be healthier. Right now, it’s very inconvenient.”

The training, Lamar said, was intended to educate the public about NCDs and let them know about effective ways to address the problem. He emphasized, however, the need for sustainability.

“We need an ongoing sustainable effort that will last decades because that’s what it’s going to take to bring about the change we need. It’s not going to happen overnight,” said Lamar.

He said he is pleased with the training’s turnout, which he described as “fantastic” as they exceeded their target. “There was much more attendance and enthusiasm than we anticipated.”

“We hope that this is going to continue to snowball,” he added. “We’re pushing that snowball along. We’re going to follow up with another conference probably toward the end of October.” (With Moneth Deposa)