by Marlon Madden
Several leading officials in their industries have agreed that greater consideration must be given to the link between the health sector and the economy as government seeks to rebuild from the devastation caused by the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic.
Economist Dr Justin Ram insisted that the time had come to move away from wanting to “build back better” to first acknowledging that the island was vulnerable to natural disasters, diseases and virus and “build forward” by building a more resilient economy.
While commending the Mia Mottley administration for its healthy international reserves at the start of the pandemic last year March, Ram said a part of building a resilient economy would be to have buffers in place to better assist individuals and businesses in the event of a future pandemic or disaster.
“We need to have good financial buffers in place. So besides foreign exchange reserves I think we also need to ensure that our governments, our households and our firms have sufficient financial buffers to take them over any sort of challenges they might experience in the future.
You need to have a buffer to take you let’s say over three to six months minimum. That has to be one of the first things that we do,” said Ram.
“Right now we are going to require some resources to build forward our economy. Not only to be resilient to the virus, to be resilient to the natural environment and changes in the natural environment to climate change.
So we need our financial markets to be much more nimble to allow the type of financing that is required and so I think that points to the fact that we need to ensure our business environment is conducive for our private sector to flourish,” said Ram
He said this rebuilding must be led by private sector growth and government being the facilitator. Ram was a panelist during the Barbados Employers’ Confederation (BEC) annual general meeting discussion held recently under the topic The Health and Economic Nexus in a COVID-19 Era. Other panelists were Minister of Health and Wellness Lt. Colonel Jeffrey Bostic and Attorney at Law Kristin Turton.
In his presentation, Bostic agreed that the COVID-19 pandemic had revealed “some serious” vulnerabilities in Barbados, adding that the link between health and the economy has been something policymakers have been “grappling with in the last few years”.
“I must tell you that I spent several weeks, long days and hours, trying to get my own team from health to understand the importance of the continuation of economic activity. If you look at this thing from a public health perspective then you will get yourself in some other types of problems . . .
“We have to make sure that whatever we do economic activity can take place because we in health for one depend significantly on the generation of revenue to be able to do the things we do in health and that was quite clear throughout this pandemic, and very early because of the large amounts of money that we had to obtain from the Ministry of Finance to do things we wanted to do,” Bostic explained.
He also agreed that the pandemic had highlighted the need for building back in a more sustainable way but “with a balance between economic development and public health matters”.
“Throughout the pandemic for example, it doesn’t mean it is always stable. At some points in time we had to give way to economic development, tourism and so on.
“Once we were able to contain and control what was happening public health-wise then we recognised the need to allow the economy to open up,” he explained.
He also pointed to the need for the issue of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) to be addressed more forcefully, explaining that it was putting increasing pressure on government’s coffers.
“That is money that is being taken away from economic development and other areas, and business places may not have recognized it, but I know Sir Trevor Hassel has been speaking to it for a while, that the loss of productivity due to the high NCD burden is placing a significant stress on the ability of the economy to really fire on all cylinders,” said Bostic.
Putting forward a legal perspective during the discussion, Turton said it was also important that as the economy is rebuilt in a sustainable way it would help to ensure that frameworks and strong laws were in place to address eventualities relating to pandemics and disasters.
She agreed that once the vulnerabilities, challenges and experiences highlighted by the pandemic were identified then careful examination of how they affect health care and its link to the economy should be done.
“It is important that in looking at those vulnerabilities we consider what laws, regulations or guides could have been in place to address these issues [and] what can we now implement to make sure that should an issue like this arise again we can address it,” said Turton.
She said currently it was about “adapting what we have” to address some of the issues, including the restriction of people’s movement and ability to work as a result of the pandemic.
“What we need now are laws that consider what would have happened here and that can now provide employers with guidance and provide employees with guidance and a structure so that they know what to do if a situation like this arises again,” she said.
She said authorities should also look for opportunities that the pandemic created and see how those opportunities have been taken advantage of, and how they could be maximised.
marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb
