RICH GET RICHER, POOR GET HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

ONE in four people in Trinidad and Tobago is walking around with deadly high blood pressure, according to the health authorities.

In its brand-new report, the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) said the T&T crisis – 25.8 per cent prevalence – is worse than in the rest of the Caribbean.

High sodium, compounded with lack of exercise, is a major culprit in a disease that often leads to fatal heart attacks and strokes.

“Hypertensive heart disease” caused 32.3 per cent of deaths two years ago, marginally less than diabetes, at 34.5 per cent.

Fast food – including the prevalent chicken-and-chips – is a primary offender, the experts repeatedly tell us.

The country’s largest operator has 129 stores, and recently reported annual revenues of $1.1 billion, a 55 per cent jump from the previous year.

T&T is the chicken-and-chips brand’s most penetrated market in the world.

The company, which also runs a chain of pizza stores, plans to “build on the progress,” of its financial success, its annual report said.

In our free enterprise system, the business group is merely fulfilling a market need, while continuously growing its consumer base through cutting-edge mass marketing.

People must take responsibility for their personal health.

But for many, it is difficult to get physical exercise or prepare healthy meals after sitting through hours-long traffic snarls to and from work.

There is a crucial role for policy-makers, partly because taxpayers fund the huge cost of patient care.

The Ministry of Health costs almost $7 billion a year.

Limited resources and horrible inefficiency in the public medical sector have led to the mushrooming of a billion-dollar private health system.

No one tells people to gorge on bad food, of course.

But, as in several other societies, the fast food business is glitzy and insidious, with combos, bundles, specials, children’s collectibles, easy accessibility, etc.

The growth of the sector is only one example of the big-business community growing apace to the direct detriment of the masses.

A business revolution is also taking place in the sale of medicine, with the largest importer having bought out three competitors within two years.

There is essentially a monopoly in the importation of pharmaceuticals.

Not surprisingly, the company revealed a 49.7 per cent higher profit in its first subsequent reporting period, and annual revenues of $1.1 billion, 17 per cent higher than the previous year.

The Free Trading Commission – which is mandated to prevent the setting up of monopolies – is asleep at the wheel.

Monopolies are quietly developing in several sectors, including in the manufacture of certain building material.

In the cement industry, the Government hounded Rock Hard out of business – with a 600 per cent increase in duties and other unfair measures – and Trinidad Cement Ltd. responded by hiking its retail prices.

TCL revealed a 175 per cent increased profit in its next reporting period.

A large firm is the dominant TCL shareholder.

The annual food import bill is just under $6 billion in the midst of a crisis in foreign exchange availability, and the Government has not carried out its end of the Caricom Agri-Food Plan.

The lucrative food import business is controlled by a tiny elite.

Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley said four years ago that “there is not enough land” to grow food, even though Caroni (1975) Ltd. left back 80,000 acres.

Some of that land has been leased for shopping malls and foreign franchises, which do not add to the country’s productive process.

The cost of food staples has gone up by 60 per cent since 2018, although, to be fair, there are several external factors.

The Covid-19 shutdown led to the permanent closures of a quarter of the some 24,000 small businesses, in a sector that employed more than 200,000 workers and contributed 40 per cent of GDP.

Several of those lines of business are now conducted by a government-friendly conglomerate, which has just reported a 19 per cent higher six-month profit.

In each case, a tightly-knitted group of shrewd and politically-practical entrepreneurs is raking in higher and higher profits, while one-third of the country exists under the poverty line.

The rich is getting richer at the expense of a population that apparently couldn’t care less – and is susceptible to hypertension.

Consider that when next you order original or spicy!