Fast growing sickness claims and related health care costs in this region, if not contained, will likely put the sustainability of social security organisations in the region at great risk.
That is according to Matthew Mathurin, Director of National Insurance Corporation (NIC) in St. Lucia. He was speaking recently during the launch of a workplace wellness initiative for the Caribbean via video conference, which is being facilitated by the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus in collaboration with the NIC. This initiative will see three workshops staged in the months of April, June and October to look at the following topics – productivity and health; wellness and prevention and cognition, focusing on dementia and ageing. The first event will kick off in St. Lucia.
Mathurin explained that his agency for example, is naturally concerned about the negative effects of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) on the population. He made the point while noting that over the past five years the NIC has seen a steady increase in sickness benefit claims, mirroring the increasing trend in NCDs and he hinted that the same thing is occurring across the region.
“In the year ended 30 June 2014, the NIC paid a total of 11 996 sickness benefit claims. Most of the claims were from persons suffering from diabetes, hypertension, stroke and heart disease. Five years later that number increased to 19 607, an increase of 64 per cent. If this trend continues we can expect to see that number increase to approximately 30 000 by the end of 2020,” he said.
Mathurin said that has alarming implications for the cost of health care and critically for the sustainability of that island’s social security fund. He made the point while noting that it has been suggested that if the current trend in sickness benefits is not halted, social security in the Americas and the Caribbean will be broke in the next 20 years.
“Not from the ever growing retirement pensions, but from the mushrooming sickness claims and health care related costs,” he stated.
He made the point while noting that NCDs can largely be prevented by adopting a healthy lifestyle, both in the workplace and out, but he said that to do so requires an integrated, multidisciplinary and sustained approach. In that vein, he said the NIC has decided not to be a bystander and instead to lead the charge in getting the population towards better health and wellness.
He went further, stating that one of their goals is to make physical activity more affordable, accessible and enjoyable. His comments came as he spoke of the role that poor dietary habits have in the spread of NCDs, contending that “we are eating and drinking our way to disease and ultimately untimely death”. (JRT)