Our 5-2035 plan calls for every 1,000 Mauritians to be taken care of by an innovative community health nurse practitioner (CHNP) under doctor supervision, working together with the community health committee (CHC) to curb chronic non-communicable diseases (related preventable conditions of type II diabetes, stroke and cardiovascular diseases).
Driven by varied motivations to decrease CNCD, a group of Mauritians and friends of Mauritius came together over the last decade to form the 5-2035 Global Foundation for Community Health (GFCH). Our aspiration: decrease type II diabetes in Mauritius to 5% prevalence by the year 2035.
We asked ourselves some basic questions to formulate a vision where we stop watching helplessly as our near and dear ones suffer unnecessarily and die prematurely from the preventable effects of CNCD. These questions included:
How do we keep health care costs from over-running the economy? How do we change our approach to view the patient and the clinician in an integrated context of the community and the health care delivery system [1]? How do we empower communities to focus on primary health rather than high-end (ultimately wasteful and ineffective) level therapeutics? How do we educate rising generations to turn away from calorie over-consumption that is at the heart of CNCD? Rather than one-way top-down interventions, how do we construct a model where local communities work together with content experts to bring alternative, successful and sustainable solutions to change behavior towards healthy lifestyle, and better quality of life for individuals with CNCD [2]?
As volunteers and private citizens with varied skillsets, we looked around the planet for answers that could fit the Mauritian context and the boundary conditions we set for ourselves.
The fundamental idea we came up with is that healthcare is an inalienable right as well as a collective responsibility; this is the central thesis of the 5-2035 vision.
We think that in 5-2035 we have a cogent approach to decrease CNCD, one community at a time, and simultaneously bring a health care revolution through integrated health care. We appreciate acutely that the challenges are huge. And yet, our assertion is that Mauritius is the ideal setting to bring effective societal changes to curb CNCD and in so doing, become an exportable model for the rest of world.
What are elements in Mauritius that are conducive to 5-2035 success? Read here.
Further discover why we think that the 5-2035 vision is the answer to the health care national security emergency in Mauritius; please see the 5-2035 Executive Summary to have an overview of our plan or request the full 76-page 5-2035 White Paper for details.
The GFCH Mission Statement and Charter can be found here.
If you have any specific questions, please do not hesitate to leave your comments or contact us. Our response time may be slow as all of us at the GFCH are volunteers for the 5-2035 mission and have full time commitments. Thank you for your understanding and patience.
References
- 1. Donaldson, M.S., et al., eds. Primary care: America’s health in a new era. 1996, National Academy Press.
- 2. Taylor-Ide, D. and C.E. Taylor, Just and Lasting Change. 2002, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.