CATEGORY:DISASTER PREPAREDNESS
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By Rawle Titus

ST.GEORGE’S, Grenada - The National Disaster Management Agency (NaDMA) recently played host to a workshop that has brought together professionals seeking to revive the Primary Health Care Unit in St. George’s.

While the theme of the workshop was Disaster Management, participants also held broad discussions aimed at reviving the Primary Health Care Unit in the parish.

“We are rushing into this Disaster Preparedness scenario because of the Hurricane season” said Dr. Christine La Grenade, Director of Community Health Services, and Ministry of Health.

“We are just beginning to reorganize the team. We still have not had elections of officers and we really have not organized an agenda for the years .We have not even put the terms of reference in place”.

Thursday August 24 was agreed as the date for the next meeting in which participants will tackle matters such as preparation of an agenda, election of officers to an executive and terms of reference of the health team.

“Through the Primary Health Care team we want to encourage a culture of preparedness among our community members” said Dr. La Grenade.

“We want the message to go out that individuals are responsible for their health and should take steps to prevent their health from deterioration to the point where they have to end up in the hospital or health centre”.

The meeting, at the conference from at NaDMA, attracted a large turnout of nurses, doctors and other health workers.

The efforts to revive the Primary Health Care Unit in St.George’s are not happening in isolation.
There is an overall drive to revive Primary Health Care Units throughout the state. Some work was done in Carriacou recently to this end.

There has been special mention of the Unit in St. David’s, which is being praised for not collapsing.
“The team in Carriacou is on its way. St. David’s has a team that never fell apart. We are hoping to continue with the momentum” Dr. La Grenade said.
“We would like to see all the Primary Health Care team fully activated and functioning by December 2006.We are working towards that”.

Participants benefited from a series of NaDMA presentations including a session on how to use various communication devices.