Organisers brag of largest ever health conference

(CNS): With some 850 delegates, 50 sponsors and 40 exhibitors, this year’s national Healthcare Conference was the largest since the annual event began five years ago. Organisers Tower marketing said the key to the success of the Healthcare Conference is the objective to make real and tangible differences in the health and wellness of the people of the Cayman Islands. Focusing on non-communicable diseases and helping to educate people to healthier lifestyles the health minister Osbourne Bodden said government is committed to helping improve health and the conference does much to educate and inform attendees on the many different ways in which they can make improvements. During his speech the minister urged people to make the most of the free advice to reduce their risks of getting sick.

“Many Caymanians are leading unhealthy lifestyles – we smoke, we are overweight and sometimes even obese and we are not getting our five-a-day recommended amount of fruit and vegetables,” he warned. Bodden had also talked about taking drastic measure to address the problem of many people continuing to smoke in Cayman despite the introduction of a smoking ban in public places and the high taxes on tobacco products. He said that it maybe that Cayman should consider becoming a smoke free environment. (Vote in the CNS poll).

“It is our goal to ensure that this conference is as informative and educational as possible, not only for the medical community, but for the general public as well.  CNCDs are diseases that are often preventable and, because of this, we are encouraging people to take charge of their lives, and learn about how to live a healthy lifestyle.”

He urged delegates not to just sit and listen but to ask questions, interact with others and gain knowledge and ideas that would improve their health

Tower’s Managing Director Lynne Byles said the 2014 conference this year’s event welcomed eight international and two local speakers with four separate workshops with 24 panellists in total. “Each workshop hosted between 35-80 delegates – an impressive turnout,” she said. “While the conference is a forum for education and information sharing, we have always made it our number one goal to include workshops and breakout sessions that result in recommendations and outputs that are presented to government in order that they can include feedback from the community in their planning.”

After last year’s conference Tower polled delegates to ask if they had made any health improvements since attending the 2013 conference. “The conference planning committee were impressed by the number of respondents to the survey who indicated their health and that of their families had been given a boost thanks to them attending last year’s conference.”

In addition to being event managers of the conference, Tower was also a premium sponsor.

“We believe in value of the conference and are proud to be a premium sponsor,” Byles said. “Tower has been at the forefront of healthcare communications in the Cayman Islands for the past years 15 years, working with a wide range of clients in government, industry, professional associations, corporations, non-governmental and non-profit organisations, this sponsorship is an obvious fit for us,” she added.