Question

A)Oman Health care systems presents more attention for prevention and control of non communicable disease (NCD). If u asked to make an action plan (program) what will be the main points should be included in your strategy.

Answer 1

Non communicable diseses(NCD) as the name states it does not transmit from one person to another by direct contact. These diseses contributes major proportion of overall mortality rate in the country. these include cardio vascular dises, diabetes mellitus, obesity, stroke, kidney disaeses and cancers.

The prevention and control of NCDs need a proper action plan to achieve the goal. Intially, need assessment of the health status of the people in the country as well as how aware are the citizens about such diseses and its prevention. Based on the assessment we can implement the action plan with the needed modifications.

ACTION PLAN

Action plan should contain the following

1. Awareness programmes

* Awareness can be started from home,school, universities, work places and hospitals.

* Distribution of palmplets, notices, broshures regarding the prevention and control of such diseses with the help of school,college authorities, company mangements , NGOs and coomunity health workers.

* Conducting awareness programmes and mediacl camps in the community level will help to identify ncds at the early stage.

* Mass media campaigns to educate the public aboult the harms of tobacco and its products, alcohol and other substance abuses, lack of physical activitiesand junk food and soft drinks.

2. Tobacco control progarammes

* Implement tobacco control measures at national wide.

* Laws can be implemented to stop the public smoking.

* Incraese the taxes and prices of tobacco and its product.

* Introduce health warnings and those images on the packages as compulsory.

3. Alcohol control programmes

* Need to enact and enforce restrictions on the physical availability of alcohol.

* Increase the prices and taxes of the alcohol and its other forms like beer, wine etc.

* Stop the advertisements which promotes the use of alcohol.

4. Healthy diet stratergies

* Introduction of regulations to display the calories and nutritional value on the package of foods even at the restaurents.

* Implement obesity control programmes at national wide.

* Increase the awareness about healthy diet( less carbohydrates,more protein, low salt and oils, avoiding junk food and soft drinks).

* Awareness classes on thre obesity and its outcome such as cardio vascular disases, diabetes mellitus, social isolation etc.

* Replace the junk food cafeterias in the school, college, universities and work place with home made food.

5. Life style modification programmes

* Encorage weight loss programmes among the over weight people.

* Establish more gyms, physical fitness areas, parks to promote physical activity.

* Stress reduction acitivities and its implementation among the people. Training yogas from the school level can have great effect.

6. Health care system avilabilty

* Strengthen the public health care system to provide essesntial medicines at the primary level.

* Encourage regular health checkups for all people including BP, blood sugar level, lipid profile, cancer markers for those with family history.

* Establish a treatment guidelines for the NCDs and appoint physicians and community health workers to implement the stratergies at the basic level of the society.

* Proper refferel and follow up system for the furthur management of the diseases once identified.