The Minister of Health and Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Health, H E Abdulla bin Khalid Al Qahtani, addressing the gathering at the Qatar National Convention Centre. Abdul Basit
DOHA: Qatar yesterday launched the National Primary Healthcare Strategy 2013-2018 which lays great emphasis on prevention, rather than treatment of diseases and recommended new ways to fight the alarming increase in lifestyle diseases in the country.
The five-year strategy developed by the Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) has identified the weaknesses in the existing health care system and suggested ways to address them.
The launch ceremony was attended by the Minister of Health H E Abdullah bin Khalid Al Qahtani, PHCC managing director Dr Mariam Abdul Malik and other senior officials.
“There is a lack of emphasis on health promotion in Qatar. The focus of care is very much on treating existing problems rather than preventing new ones. In primary health care setting this manifests itself in a lack of health promotion services,” says the strategy document released yesterday.
For instance, only five of the 23 primary health centers have nutritionists (only two) to promote healthy eating and weight management. And there is just one health center providing smoking cessation service, with two clinics per week.
This assumes more significance, with latest studies, quoted by the document, showing that 51 per cent of the Qataris have three or more risk factors associated with chronic non-communicable diseases.
Forty-one percent of Qataris and 32 percent of the whole population are obese; 32 per cent of the Qatari men and 30 per cent of the whole male population smoke.
Dental healthcare is provided at 19 health centers, with 317,621 visits in 2011.
“Ideally dental healthcare should be preventive, maintaining the health of teeth so that prevention not required. However, the majority of PHCC dental visits resulted in some form of treatment such as filling or extraction,” says the document.
The key health promotion programmes recommended by the strategy include: Vending machines in primary health centres will stock only healthy food; health centre staff will be electronically promoted to ask visitors about smoking status; develop a parent held record for child development, publish comparative sickness absence rates for each health centre.
The strategy recommended that employers — starting with government departments and agencies — develop healthy workplace action plans, including a minimum standard in terms of sickness absence policies. A high number of sickness certifications are placing a burden on primary health care.
Primary health care should work with sports clubs and societies in the country to encourage people to do more sporting activities, says the document.
The strategy has identified the limitations in the existing approach to treating non-communicable or lifestyle diseases (NCDs) as: Over reliance on hospitals, lack of rapid access to diagnostics for primary health care resulting in people being referred to unnecessary tests, limited facilities and equipment at health centres, poor communication between primary and secondary care, inconsistency (two people with same needs may be treated in very different ways) and lack of information for patients (where and how to get safe health care).
As a solution, initially NCD clinics, covering all common diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and COPD (chromic obstructive pulmonary disease) should be introduced in all health centres by the end of this year.
Overtime it is recommended that NCD clinics discontinue and all general practitioners and family practitioners provide NCD care as their core business. The Peninsula
