{"id":13448,"date":"2025-09-29T10:54:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T14:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/?p=13448"},"modified":"2025-09-29T10:54:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T14:54:18","slug":"grenada-leads-regional-charge-against-non-communicable-diseases-with-paho-hearts-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/29\/grenada-leads-regional-charge-against-non-communicable-diseases-with-paho-hearts-initiative\/","title":{"rendered":"Grenada Leads Regional Charge Against Non Communicable Diseases With PAHO Hearts Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Grenada has officially achieved national scale up of the\u00a0<b>PAHO HEARTS initiative<\/b>, marking a major milestone in the fight against non communicable diseases (NCDs). Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are no longer just a public\u00a0 health concern in Grenada\u2014they are a national priority. In 2019, NCDs accounted for over 80%\u00a0 of all deaths in the country, with cardiovascular diseases responsible for four of the top five leading\u00a0 causes. By 2022, more than 80% of hospital discharges for chronic illness were due to\u00a0 cardiovascular conditions, while hypertension and diabetes continued to rank among the top causes\u00a0 of morbidity. Risk factors such as obesity and physical inactivity remain alarmingly high.<\/p>\n<p>Launched in February 2025 after joining the initiative in 2023, HEARTS is now implemented\u00a0 across all public primary care clinics. The program has already delivered measurable\u00a0 improvements in blood pressure control and care delivery, thanks to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A\u00a0<b>standardized clinical pathway for the management of hypertension<\/b>, which we are now expanding to private providers.<\/li>\n<li><b>Affordable access to essential medications\u00a0<\/b>through the national medicines\u2019 formulary.\u00a0\u2022\u00a0<b>Digital hypertension registries\u00a0<\/b>replace paper-based systems.<\/li>\n<li><b>Comprehensive training and certification\u00a0<\/b>of 231 health professionals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Prime Minister\u00a0<b>Hon. Dickon Mitchell<\/b>, speaking at the\u00a0<b>CARICOM Non-Communicable Disease\u00a0 and Mental Health Breakfast Meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly<\/b>,\u00a0 emphasized Grenada\u2019s commitment to HEARTS and broader health system transformation. He\u00a0 highlighted the link between NCDs, mental health, and the digital shift post-COVID, underscoring\u00a0 the need for suicide prevention, physical activity, and mindset change.<\/p>\n<p>The meeting\u2019s objectives included:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Showcasing CARICOM\u2019s progress since the 2007 Port-of-Spain Declaration. 2. Securing funding for NCD initiatives.<\/li>\n<li>Celebrating regional leadership in NCD and climate action.<\/li>\n<li>Raising awareness of the Caribbean\u2019s collective response.<\/li>\n<li>Highlighting priority actions toward the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. 6. Sharing best practices from national and community-led efforts.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>CARICOM leaders, including Secretary General,\u00a0<b>Dr. Carla Barnette\u00a0<\/b>and Bahamas\u2019\u00a0<b>Prime\u00a0 Minister Honourable Phillip Davis<\/b>, echoed the urgency of integrating mental health into primary\u00a0 care, confronting commercial drivers of poor health, and establishing stable health budgets.<\/p>\n<p>Even modest improvements in hypertension control can prevent hundreds of strokes and heart\u00a0 attacks annually. These changes save lives, reduce healthcare costs, and strengthen communities<\/p>\n<p><b>Next Steps:\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Institutionalizing the standardized pathway across all primary care facilities.\u00a0\u2022\u00a0Adopting a policy requiring validated automatic blood pressure devices in all public\u00a0 facilities.<\/li>\n<li>Introducing six-monthly re-certification of healthcare providers in blood pressure\u00a0 measurement, with incentives for compliance.<\/li>\n<li>Launching a\u00a0<b>HEARTS Champions\u00a0<\/b>campaign to engage communities and build advocacy.\u00a0\u2022\u00a0Expanding and integrating the digital hypertension registry into\u00a0<b>DHIS-2<\/b>, including private\u00a0 sector data.<\/li>\n<li>Restarting the chronic disease self-management program, prioritizing hypertension.\u00a0\u2022\u00a0Scaling up to\u00a0<b>HEARTS-D<\/b>, extending the approach to broader NCD management.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Grenada\u2019s leadership in adopting HEARTS nationally sets a powerful example for the Caribbean.\u00a0 As Prime Minister Mitchell affirmed, \u201cGrenada\u2019s mission is to give every citizen the opportunity\u00a0 to improve their lives\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Grenada has officially achieved national scale up of the\u00a0PAHO HEARTS initiative, marking a major milestone in the fight against non communicable diseases (NCDs). Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are no longer just a public\u00a0 health concern in <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/29\/grenada-leads-regional-charge-against-non-communicable-diseases-with-paho-hearts-initiative\/\" title=\"Grenada Leads Regional Charge Against Non Communicable Diseases With PAHO Hearts Initiative\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,39],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13448","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-government-news","8":"category-local-news"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_7757-2-1024x683-1.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_7757-2-1024x683-1.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1",1024,683,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_7757-2-1024x683-1.jpg",1024,683,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_7757-2-1024x683-1.jpg",1024,683,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_7757-2-1024x683-1.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_7757-2-1024x683-1.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1",300,200,true],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_7757-2-1024x683-1.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1",1024,683,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_7757-2-1024x683-1.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1",1024,683,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_7757-2-1024x683-1.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1",1024,683,true],"mh-magazine-slider":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_7757-2-1024x683-1.jpg?resize=1024%2C438&ssl=1",1024,438,true],"mh-magazine-content":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_7757-2-1024x683-1.jpg?resize=678%2C381&ssl=1",678,381,true],"mh-magazine-large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_7757-2-1024x683-1.jpg?resize=678%2C509&ssl=1",678,509,true],"mh-magazine-medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_7757-2-1024x683-1.jpg?resize=326%2C245&ssl=1",326,245,true],"mh-magazine-small":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_7757-2-1024x683-1.jpg?resize=80%2C60&ssl=1",80,60,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"adminrfm","author_link":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/author\/adminrfm\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/category\/news\/government-news\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Government News<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/category\/news\/local-news\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Local News<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Grenada has officially achieved national scale up of the\u00a0PAHO HEARTS initiative, marking a major milestone in the fight against non communicable diseases (NCDs). Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are no longer just a public\u00a0 health concern in [...]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13448"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13450,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13448\/revisions\/13450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}