If I were the Prime Minister of T&T there would be…………

Free access to diabetes testing tools

BY JACK AUSTIN WARNER PhD

If I were the Prime Minis­ter of Trini­dad and Tobago, one of the sim­plest, most cost-effective, and most humane policies I would introduce is free, nationwide access to diabetes testing tools.

Not as a pilot project. Not as a once-a-year health fair. But as a permanent public-health commitment, treated with the same seriousness as vaccinations, prenatal care, or infectious-disease surveil­lance.
Diabetes is not a marginal issue in Trinidad and To­bago. It is a quiet national emergency. We are among the countries with the high­est rates of diabetes and pre-diabetes in the world, yet we continue to behave as if this disease is a matter of indi­vidual failure rather than a systemic public-health chal­lenge.
Too many citizens discov­er they are diabetic only after catastrophic events: a stroke, kidney failure, blindness, or amputation. By then, the cost, human and financial, is already enormous.
Testing is where the fail­ure begins. Early detection of diabetes and pre-diabetes is not technologically com­plex.
A simple finger-prick test can reveal dangerous glu­cose patterns long before symptoms appear. Yet for many citizens, even that small barrier, cost, access, time off work, or lack of awareness, means testing never happens. When the state does not remove barri­ers, disease spreads silently.
If I were the prime minis­ter, I would start from a ba­sic economic truth: it is far cheaper to prevent compli­cations than to treat them.
A glucose meter and test­ing strips cost a fraction of what the state now spends on dialysis, amputations, cardiovascular surgery, dis­ability grants, and long-term hospital care. Every undi­agnosed diabetic is a future budget line item, one that grows more expensive with every year of delay.
Free testing tools would not be charity; they would be sound fiscal policy. The state already pays, whether it chooses to or not.
The only question is whether it pays early and cheaply or late and cata­strophically. Right now, we are choosing the more ex­pensive option.
But the argument is not only economic; it is moral. Access to basic health infor­mation should not depend on income. A citizen should not have to choose between gro­ceries and a test strip.
When we talk about healthcare as a right, that right must include the abil­ity to know what is happen­ing inside one’s own body. Knowledge is the first form of care.
Free testing would also change behaviour. People manage what they can mea­sure. When citizens see their blood sugar rising after cer­tain foods, habits change. When pre-diabetes is identi­fied early, lifestyle interven­tions can delay or even pre­vent full-blown disease.
This is not theory; it is sup­ported by decades of global evidence. Countries that invest in early detection re­duce complications and ex­tend healthy life expectancy.
The state’s role would not end with handing out devic­es. Testing must be paired with education. If I were the prime minister, I would inte­grate diabetes screening into primary care, workplaces, schools, community centres and mobile clinics.
Nurses, pharmacists, and community health work­ers would be empowered to test, educate, and refer. Data, anonymized and protected, would be used to identify hotspots and tailor interven­tions. This is how modern public health works.
There is also a national productivity dimension that cannot be ignored. Diabetes disproportionately affects working-age adults. Lost workdays, reduced produc­tivity, early retirement, and disability all weaken the economy.
When we talk about growth, diversification, and resilience, we must confront the fact that an unhealthy population cannot deliver any of those outcomes. Pre­ventive health is economic policy by another name.
Leadership is not only about grand projects and headline announcements
Critics will inevitably ask whether the state can afford such a programme. The bet­ter question is whether the state can afford not to have such a programme.
We already subsidize the consequences of inaction through hospitals, social services, and lost economic output. Free testing tools would simply shift spending upstream, where it does the most good.
Others may argue that per­sonal responsibility should come first. But responsibil­ity requires opportunity. You cannot responsibly manage a condition you do not know if you have.
The state has a duty to cre­ate the conditions in which personal responsibility is possible, not merely to lec­ture citizens after the dam­age is done.
If I were Prime Minister, I would treat diabetes the way we treat any slow-moving national threat: with early warning systems, universal access to detection, and sus­tained public education.
Free testing tools would be a signal that the state understands the scale of the problem and is willing to act decisively.
Leadership is not only about grand projects and headline announcements. Sometimes it is about quiet, persistent investments that save lives and money over time. A glucose test does not make for dramatic speeches, but it can prevent a funeral, an amputation, blindness or a lifetime of suffering.
If I were Prime Minister, I would choose prevention over regret. And I would start by making sure every citizen has the simple tools needed to know the truth about their health, before it is too late.