PRIME Minister Dr Timothy Harris, who has been organising monthly health walks since April 2007, is being applauded at the regional level for embracing the regional Caribbean Moves with the launch in St Kitts and Nevis of SKN Moves last year.

Caribbean Moves is an initiative launched in 2018 that is based on the successful Jamaica Moves campaign which focuses on physical activity, healthy eating and age-appropriate health checks.

“We are here on the last Saturday in November to once again walk with the prime minister for his monthly Prime Minister’s Health Walk, which is now in collaboration with the SKN Moves initiative,” said Federal Minister of Health Akilah Byron-Nisbett last Saturday at the end of the latest edition of Prime Minister’s Monthly Health Walk.

Byron-Nisbett noted that SKN Moves was started in 2019 when the minister of health of Jamaica, Dr Christopher Tufton, would have introduced the idea to Caricom following the success of Jamaica Moves.

Tufton travelled to St Kitts and Nevis to help launch the SKN Moves on August 9 last year.

“Just recently at a Caribbean health ministers meeting, Dr Tufton would have applauded the prime minister of St Kitts and Nevis for really taking up the initiative and running with it,” said Byron-Nisbett.

“Prime Minister Harris is also the minister with responsibility for health for Caricom and so he is making sure he does his part to set the example for the rest of the Caribbean region,” added Byron-Nisbett.

Byron-Nisbett, who was accompanied on the Prime Minister’s Monthly Health Walk by her permanent secretary Dr Delores Stapleton-Harris, noted that they were pleased that the prime minister continues to support the Ministry of Health and the SKN Moves initiative the way he does.

“This should be the last Prime Minister’s Health Walk for this year and we will see everybody in January,” said Byron-Nisbett.

“We wanted to make sure you get that last exercise in before you eat all of the good Christmas food, but come January we will be back again making sure that persons remember that we have to keep moving.

“We have to make sure we take care of our primary health especially now in the time of COVID-19. It is important for us to make sure we do our annual check-ups, visit our doctors regularly and be able to make sure we stay healthy so that we can live longer productive lives,” declared Byron-Nisbett.

She noted that non-communicable disease is a huge problem in St Kitts and Nevis and stressed that the only way the country can combat it is by making sure that people eat right, exercise properly, and do all of their regular check-ups and invest in primary health care to avoid the country’s institutional-based health services being overwhelmed.

“And so I am just encouraging persons, don’t let this be the end of it for the year for you.

“Keep moving, keep exercising, keep eating right — even make sure you look at your portions in December so that we ensure that we reduce our NCD rates, diabetes and all of those other illnesses that tend to tackle us and we just look forward to everyone continuing to move, being encouraged to move, and we will see you in January for the continuation of the monthly Prime Minister’s Health Walk in collaboration with SKN Moves,” added Byron-Nisbett.