Welcome, and aloha. I'm Mark Schlaufe, the host of think tech Hawaii's law across the sea program. Today we have a special program. We are going across the sea of humanity to talk the talk about Alzheimer's disease and how to walk the walk board secure. My guests are Dr. Bridget Collins and Rebecca Howell. Dr. Bridget Collins is a board certified family medicine physician practicing on Kauai. He's a member of the Hawaii Academy of Family Physicians and also a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Rebecca Haleron is the manager of the Walk to End Alzheimer's for the aloha chapter of the Alzheimer's Association here in Hawaii. I've asked Rebecca and Bridget to share their knowledge and expertise with us. Rebecca, I'm going to start with you. We often hear about Alzheimer's disease and also about dementia. I'm not sure we really have a clear picture of what it is. What are they? And what is the difference, if any, between those two terms? Yeah, great question, Mark. These terms are often used interchangeably. Basically, the difference is that dementia is an umbrella term used to describe a range of symptoms that are associated with cognitive impairment. So this would be changes in memory, thinking, or behavior. And we do have a graphic that I wanted to pull up on the screen here. So if we look here, we can see that Alzheimer's is the most common cause of dementia, making up from about 60% to 80% of all cases. So other types of causes of dementia include lewy body, vascular, frontal temporal. So that's these other types that you'll hear. So while the terms are used interchangeably, it's more so that Alzheimer's is a type, it's a cause of dementia, which is more so just a description of symptoms. Okay, so we'll learn a little bit more as we go along. Now, you are involved with the Alzheimer's Association. What does it do here in Hawaii? How does it contribute to our community here in Hawaii? So the Alzheimer's Association is the worldwide leading voluntary health organization dedicated solely to Alzheimer's care, support, and research. We're actually behind only the US and the Chinese government in terms of Alzheimer's research funding. We currently have over 650 research projects spanning 39 countries. And there's a little fun fact that we like to say that any moment of the day, there's someone in a lab doing a research project trying to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease. So I wanted to backtrack a little bit before we dive into here in Hawaii and give you guys some facts. Alzheimer's disease is the only disease in the top 10 deadliest diseases in America that has no known cause and no known cure. Don't know how to slow it. Don't know how to treat it. And it's the only one out of all of the deadliest diseases. It kills more than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. And one in three seniors die with Alzheimer's or another type of dementia. Now here in Hawaii Alzheimer's is very prevalent. And we are predicting an over 20% increase in the next four years. We're jumping up to about 35,000 people with dementia by 2025. And this is due to the fact that we have an aging population. As the baby boomers age, the number of people with dementia will also increase. So therefore resources need to increase with it. The port needs to grow, research needs to continue, which means our fundraising must come and meet that demand. So beyond research here in Hawaii, the association provides free local resources to residents living with Alzheimer's disease and their families, including their caregivers, which is such a big part of the disease. So some of the opportunities that we offer is support groups. We do education classes and seminars, professional trainings, so anything from legal and financial advice to just Alzheimer's 101 to effective communication strategies. We provide care consultations, referral services, and a 24-7 helpline. And the way that we're able to continue offering these free programs to local residents and their families is through our annual fundraising campaigns, which I know we'll get to in a little bit. Yeah. Well, I want to ask you, you are involved in the walk to end Alzheimer's. And I'd like to know what is it? And how does it contribute to research and provide support to our community here in Hawaii? Yeah. So the Walk to Alzheimer's is our biggest annual signature fundraising event. Across the nation, it's held in over 600 communities here in Hawaii. We have four walks on our major islands. It's a fun, family-friendly event where the community gathers together to thank and honor our caregivers, remember those we've lost to Alzheimer's disease, support those that are still battling the disease, and raise money for this incredible cause. It's hosted every fall, so we still have a few months away. And the funds that we do raise contribute directly back to our community. And like I said, are able to provide these support programs, classes, referral services, all that to folks at no cost. And there was a photo that I saw of the group. What is this? Yeah. So this was our walk back in 2019. The walks have just continued to grow year over year. There's some of the biggest charity walks in the state. This is a photo from our Oahu group actually. And something that I have found interesting, profound is that while I am so excited that we've had such an increase in support, I've seen participants almost double across the state. What that means is that there's that many more people being touched by the disease. There's that many more people that it's affecting personally. And that's why they're showing up. And that's why they're wanting to fundraise and participate. So we love this support and we love participation. But you have to think that that goes hand in hand with how many people it's impacting and why we have to continue fundraising. Yeah. And I kind of want to go into that a little bit now with Bridget. It seems like there's a lot of people that are aware of Alzheimer's. And in your family practice, I mean, is there a difference that you find between Alzheimer's and dementia in the practical medical sense? What are you seeing? Well, first, Mark, thank you for inviting me this opportunity to talk about Alzheimer's disease, which is it already has such a big impact on families and individuals. And that's only going to increase in the next 30 years or so. But I think in practice right now, due to what we have available to us as far as testing and treatment, it doesn't make a big difference what kind of dementia you have at least early on. And when we're dealing with mild cognitive impairments and early stages of Alzheimer's dementia, we only have treatment testing that we use in like questions and assessments in the office and common use. And there's only four medications, well, there's five because one's a combination, but there's really only four medications right now to treat and dementia. It does matter some because if you have like a low body's dementia or something from Huntington's or Parkinson's, there's different treatment. So in practice, what we do is we find cognitive impairments and dementia. And then we do some testing to make sure we're not dealing with depression, anxiety, things like multi-infarct dementia, which is usually it's a cardiovascular risk factor. So hopefully we're already working on that anyway to prevent heart attacks and larger strokes. And if there's family history of something like Parkinson's or Huntington's Korea or Lui by dementia, then we address all the things we can and we treat, you know, all these other aspects of the person's well-being. And then once we've kind of addressed all that, then we're just doing the best we can with what we have available now. Well, how do you diagnose if somebody has Alzheimer's? How do you make that decision? Well, so for me right now, I basically say Alzheimer's type dementia because I don't have a way to really diagnose Alzheimer's just yet. Historically, the only way we could diagnose Alzheimer's was after death. We do have some really hopeful things, though, that are happening in the research community, which just aren't available yet for everyday use because they're expensive and only available in certain places. But there are some biomarkers and they're able to tag amyloid now. So they can do a PET scan to see how much amyloid plaque is existing in someone's brain, but that's really just at big research centers right now. But I'm hoping that because they're doing all this work, they're able to find more tests that we can do with just blood work. The other biomarkers are mainly available through lumbar puncture, which is also an invasive procedure that most people don't really want to have one of those unless they really need to. And I mean, is this something that you develop in stages? Are there stages of Alzheimer's? I mean, can you tell somebody is developing it? Yeah. So, well, first of all, the number one risk factor for getting Alzheimer's diseases age. So after age 65, we see the incidence increase. And it starts at like 3.5%, I think at 65, but it goes up to like almost 20% as you get like over 80. So we can see that age is part of it. There's one genetic marker, but it's really rare. So it's not really something that comes into play all the time. And the phases are basically people start to have trouble with things they never had trouble with before. Forgefulness, that's more than just the usual getting lost. Another one that sometimes happens earlier is just the inability to do something with your hands, like a skill that you were really good at before, like knitting or fine work. And that's a problem with the brain communicating with your hand. Like you're telling it to do something, but it's just not doing what you want it to do. And these are all symptoms of Alzheimer's. It does range from mild to moderate to severe. And most people that are still living at a home are in the mild, maybe moderate phase. Once people get pretty severe, it's more end stage. And they're not, the individual is no longer really communicating, no longer really doing much of anything. So for the end Alzheimer's becomes very very exclusive. It's a word I always like to use with it because it's something people can understand. And is there, I mean, does it help to to diagnose early? And is there something that you can do if you diagnose early? How does that work? Well, for me in primary care, I think the earlier we know someone is having an issue, we can first of all, ensure that we're maximizing their nutrition exercise, other aspects of treatment, rule out other causes of issues with cognition. And then we can start the medications that are available. So none of these medications stop the progression of the disease or cure it or really slow it down. But what they do is they help control symptoms, which can allow a person to stay at home, you know, taking care of their own physical, basic physical needs a lot longer than if we don't do anything. And it varies from individual to individual. But when usually we start people on one of the colonist race inhibitor medications first, and then over time, depending on how they're doing, we'll add the NMDA antagonist, which is commonly known as Namenda, to that treatment plan, with the goal of allowing people to, you know, age in place, spend time with their family. And the other thing that I think is really important, Mark, and this may be your alley more, but is it gives people a chance to plan and address issues in a non-confrontational, more gradual way in, you know, making their advanced health care directive, for example. Right. So early diagnosis, some possible treatment is good. Rebecca, would you add anything to that? Or would you have some comments about that also? I think another factor is early diagnosis allows, at least on the research front, to be involved in clinical trials. And I think that's something that a lot of times people don't think about. And, you know, with these clinical trials, that gives all research projects the opportunity to get one step closer to finding a cure or finding a treatment that works. And we are kind of like, we're at the doorstep, we're knocking on the door, we're there, we're just not quite there yet. We are making progress, it's just, it's a long road, so. And Bridget talked about some treatment.  In terms of the drugs themselves, no, Bridget was right on with the, well, we have technically four, but five. That again, just treats the symptoms. So they do nothing to slow it. Some exciting news that I guess we can discuss now is that the FDA is reviewing in June, a drug called AgiCanimab that the association is fully behind. And that would be the first of its kinds that could blow the progression. That would be the first available drug. So should that get approved, then that would be, you know, kind of the first huge, hopeful treatment that we've ever seen. So we'll see how that goes in June. What was that called? The drug? It's called AgiCanimab. Okay. And it would help to, it's the brain, is that what it would be used for, either one of you? Okay. So I'm not as familiar with where we are on that particular drug. But that would be the plan. Yes. What they've been developing are drugs that will either directly inhibit the creation of the plaques or will help to slow down the progression of the plaques. And so far, unfortunately, most of those things have not made it into phase three trials. But this is very exciting news. So it's basically directly attacking the creation of the plaques. Okay. And you've both talked about drugs. Are there any other tools that have been mentioned besides drugs that would be helpful and useful in your practice, Bridget, or just practically? Sure. So there have been several trials. There's actually an ongoing trial called finger, which is, oh, golly, I'm not going to remember what it stands for, sorry. But it's basically an ongoing study of lifestyle modification and being a little more structured in that to see how much of an effect it can have. And it looks at nutrition, exercise, sleep, and cognitive and social interaction. And already the first two years study showed some positive results with the more, you know, following the more guideline directed treatment, so that it's actually being done all over the world right now. They've expanded it. And the other thing that they're looking for just in general, I know they're looking for more minority people to participate in research studies that they've done like a phase where they had mostly, I guess, Caucasian people. So now they're looking to bring in more African American and Latino, Latinx patients for sure to help get more information like if these same treatment plans will work for these individuals. And, you know, the thing that's nice is that all of us can start working on our lifestyle modification now.  Yeah. And, you know, I guess sometimes when we're young, we don't think that far ahead. And we do things that maybe we will regret later, you know, and that may affect our function. Now, I'd like to put that photo up again, number two, the one of the group. Rebecca, you know, there's a whole mixture of people in that group. I mean, they're young, old, all different races. And it looks like it's a good cross-section of our community. And what are some of the fundraising efforts that are you up to now, aimed at raising money for Alzheimer's research? Yeah. And you're right, that photo is, you know, it's very telling in that Alzheimer's affects anybody at, you know, any time from, I guess, middle-aged up, because we have early onset cases. And with that comes that, you know, it affects not just the children, but the grandchildren. And almost everyone is touched by it right now.  Yep. You know, I'm in the same same position. I'm a caregiver too. So now year round, we spend fundraising for this annual signature walk in the fall. And while we do have a ton of support from businesses through our corporate sponsorships, what I found in Hawaii in particular is that most of our support is from individuals. So it's just from everyday people who have nothing but a generous heart that they just want to help out. And it affected them so much that they will host rummage sales. They'll do virtual concerts. They'll do silent auctions. And, you know, email me for ideas. And they'll host concerts at restaurants and spend the year fundraising for this one day.  And the support that I've seen at least in this Hawaii community is it's incredible. And it's not just an individual effort. It's a family effort. It's a work effort. It's a whole community effort. I've never really seen anything like it. And people, I guess, could go on your website for your Aloha chapter and find out what's going on. You'd have your current events. Yeah, yeah. So on our website, you can go to ALZ.org slash Hawaii. And from there, you can do see everything from our, you know, our walk event and, you know, the different things leading up to that to everything on the program side. So the support groups where they're located, the education classes, the helpline number, all of our contacts to junior referral services or a care consultation. So everything can be found on the website. And now I want to kind of go back to some things you both have brought up and and when somebody in the family is dealing with somebody that's having problems, dementia, Alzheimer's or cognitive problems, whatever you want to call it, how do you talk to them? I mean, how do you convince them to give up driving or not to do something that could hurt them? What advice would you give families? Bridget first with you and then Rebecca. Sure. Well, you're right. And in the United States, particularly, giving up driving is a big deal because you sort of become homebound, I guess. But I will say a couple of things. One is we have, for example, in Kauai, we have the the handy ride situation with the Kauai bus. And so people can arrange for rides to doctor's offices for shopping and all those things. And I think one of the keys is starting early. In my personal experience with Alzheimer's, there's some phases that people go through where initially they know there's something wrong and they want to do the right thing. So in that phase, if you have someone who's willing to just give up driving, that would be perfect. They're not really safe to drive anymore and it's time to take away the keys and the car. Some people aren't that cooperative for a variety of reasons, but I feel that just starting early and repeating and repeating and then appealing to their sense of most people don't want to hurt anybody else. Most people wouldn't want to run over a kid or something with their car. And so if they know that they're less coordinated, if they know that they're not being able to do things even around the house that these go to do, then driving is obviously going to be more dangerous. One thing I read in my studies for this broadcast was that a lot of drivers start self-regulating prior to being diagnosed or even getting assessed for cognitive impairment because they have noticed that they need a little more time to make decisions. So they start driving more defensively and I actually appreciate this for a lot of reasons because I'm a lot more aware now of the studies that are going on and all that. So I'm grateful I was invited to do this, but I noticed that that was something that came up in the literature I was reviewing. And so I think a lot of people will self-regulate. I think if you have the conversations early, if you repeat the importance of it, that a lot of people would be willing to give up their keys sooner and not waiting until there's an accident. And okay, Rebecca, what would you have? It's complicated and I know I mean my family went through this personally with my grandma where it was her not accepting that she couldn't be independent anymore and wanting to go back to an apartment that we had sold from her of hers eight years ago. And it was kind of meeting them where they're at and saying, yes, it would be nice to go to the apartment. Maybe we'll go later and distracting her with something else than putting on some music she liked, changing the mood, chatting about anything. I mean it's really hard and these communication strategies are something that people, I think they don't realize comes with a diagnosis and it comes with the burden of caregiving. And it's something that you just kind of have to continually practice. And as frustrating as it is to be on this end, imagine being on their end. So I think it's always just meeting them where they're at and my grandma would say like, oh, I wish we could go visit blah, blah, blah. Let's go see him right now. He had been done for 15 years. So I say, yes, it would be nice to see him. It would. Yeah, that would be great. And so just, I mean it's really hard but those are just some of the things that I would say to her. Yeah, you know, that's kind of interesting the fact that you're dealing with cognition by cognition. You're using the problem and the solution. They're kind of interwoven. And we each, we have a couple minutes left and I want to give you each a minute to tell me how you've personally been affected. I mean, Rebecca, you talked about your grandmother, but Bridget, first you get your shot and then we'll close with Rebecca. Oh boy. Well, I have a varied experience in outpatient clinic and I was also medical director of a long-term care facility for a long time and that was my full-time job so I was in the facility all the time. And I, everything, Rebecca just brought up a point of not necessarily giving people reality checks. Sometimes that's too much for them and it just makes everybody upset. So I think that watching people change is so hard on the caregivers. And even the person, like I said earlier, there's a point where they know something's wrong and they can sort of deal with it and then there's the next level where they sort of know something's wrong but they just don't understand what's happening because they can't really remember what we've told them about their disease. And that's kind of a rough time for a lot of the patients and seeing people going through that is difficult. And then I think as things progress, if people have made their needs clear, then it's a lot easier for everybody. When people haven't taken the advantage of the opportunity to make their own plans and find an advocate that will stand up for them, it becomes really challenging for the end of life because somebody somewhere thinks that you're starving grandma or something when you're not. So I think it's really important to make plans. Rebecca, what would you have? I think that for me Alzheimer's just affects me very personally. Everyone has their story and mine is my grandmother who was instrumental in raising me. She raised me the first 15 years of my life and was my person and then our role switch. And I had to very quickly become that person for her, for her last well. And I just spent so much time in her home visiting her in her senior living facility and seeing the stages that people went through and it was heartbreaking. And I now plead to my friends, I plead to anyone that I talk to just how important this is. And it should be top of mind, top of everyone's mind. And as I've said, it's only going to affect more and more people. And so we need to do everything we can to stop it. And I know I spend my day every single day like I dedicate my work to this because my grandma deserves it. So I just thank you guys for letting me be on here and for the support. Thank you both very much for going across the sea of humanity with us and talking and walking. And hopefully we'll get to that cure. So Bridget, Rebecca, Aloha, thank you very much. We continually want to talk about what happens and where we're going. Aloha.


This is the animation minute Let's start with job postings tangent animation is posting a job alert and if you go to their site and you scroll down You can see a lot of positions including animated positions and more big list. Go check it out Epic games is looking for a senior technical animator. I'll put in the link description for the application page Micros animation is looking for 3d animators mid and senior again. I'll put the link in description Epic's recruiting is tweeting out the summer 2021 internship list Moving on to another tweet by David showing his animation process for frozen to absolutely cool You can see the process here acting choices and then it goes into that process and the final animation always super cool to see that Speaking of a showcase, this is Brandon here posting a really really cool tweet This is 1.1 million views about how to explain camera movements to students animation mentor is tweeting out eclipse Supercute, I love that jumping for the ladder another absolutely insane a stop motion clip by Victor I love this a lot of the presentation. I love this kind of QB. Look at it. Look at that. So cool Speaking of cool, that's a cool presentation of the different weapon transition animations Alberto is posting here the cowboy bebop version of the Mandalorian click the link to look at the full version It's absolutely mind-blowing. I love it so much work, but also super cool Love how it starts from a bouncing ball into different shapes into absolute madness This was done using cali peg Last but not least and when I finish it with this with super cool helmet design with this green I don't know what this is, but I love it and that is that for the animation minute You can find me every Monday at 8 a.m. On this channel


Hi, welcome to Scramble. I'm Dylan McGelegate. I'm Nora Flay. And we have quite a show lined up for us today We have a welder a future UC Davis student a San Diego State frat boy and Anything else old sport? Fabulous movie review. I have to say and we picked this topic because it is relevant to the aging high school population That is starting to think about what they're going to do after high school. So It could be a pilot you could be a sailor And or it could be a charismatic television host Stay tuned and find out what people in Davis are doing. We're here with Brian Simmons And he chose to go into like a different route after high school He is going to go into trade school for welding. So Brian, can you tell me what? What drew you to trade school instead of like a four-year college? well over the summer I took some introductory welding classes, and I really fell in love with them and I continued to think about pursuing welding as a career and I Looked at the different options, and I decided it was what I wanted to do. That's so cool I feel like that it would be like a really tough decision to make but Yeah, it wasn't too hard for me actually my parents were very supportive of it And I was really passionate about it, and I was pretty set on wanting to do it So what type of welding do you think you'll be doing what what does a welder a modern welder do these days? Well, there are a lot of different paths you can go down with welding which is part of why it appeals to me There are a lot of things you can do There's pipeline welding you can do shipbuilding you could go into the aerospace industry and build airplanes One of my goals is to get into motorsports and racing like making custom cars and race cars That sounds so cool. That's like every boy's dream, you know, I hear like I Just don't hear about enough people going into you know actual trade Like schools and stuff Do you think it's common? I think that People are doing it a lot less these days there are a lot of Welders that are at the age of retirement that are going out of the workforce and there aren't a lot of new people coming in So there is a bit of a shortage of people in the trades So Brian you mentioned that you're interested in welding cars. Oh, what part of cars would you be welding? Mostly like the frame and chassis and stuff, but I'm also interested in working on cars the mechanical aspect of it too So would this be like body shop work or like fixing a bumper that got smacked or maybe a little bit, but I'm more into kind of Building cars from the ground up, you know starting and welding together like a frame or something like that and then Adding on to the rest of it So if you were to like give any recommendations to someone else who was interested in just going straight into like a trade school What would you tell them? I would say think really hard about it It's a really good option and if it's something you really like to do. I think you're gonna Be successful in it. So what classes are you taking at the high school right now to help prep you for American River? One of the classes I'm taking is ROP automotive technology. That's kind of like the advanced automotive class at the school I took it because it gives you a little more freedom to kind of work on different Projects and do more stuff in the shop I'm also doing an internship through that class and I'm going to one of the repair shops in town Four days a week and working with the mechanics there. That's so cool So how long does it take you to go through all your classes at American River? it depends on how Intense you want to get with your scheduling you can Take it easy and only do a few units per semester or you can try to cram as much in as possible and Some people can get Through their two-year degree in as little as a year and a half or even less That's so nice. You just get to you know get what you need and then you get to go out in the workforce and really learn by doing Yeah, you can really adjust your classes to fit your schedule and take what you want and not take what you don't want to There's a lot of options. It's just awesome. Oh, and what is your favorite car manufacturer? Favorite manufacturer. I don't know if I don't know if I could choose one. I Do you prefer a European sports car as American muscle? I'm an American muscle car fan. I'm good can't argue with the classics excellent All right. Well, it was really cool learning about just going into trade school and a different route to follow after Finishing up high school. So thanks for joining us Brian. Thank you No matter how much the government outside organizations or really anyone has tried to crack down on drugs and alcohol among youth in the United States No one seems to be successful. I mean ever since the love explosion in 60s No one has been able to truly deny the youth their rights and I feel like it's at this point kind of a fruitless battle like Even the war on drugs. It's another war that has never really been successful drug lords are more powerful than ever just like the war in Iraq just some wars aren't really just not meant to be and That brings me to North Korea It's it's a bad sign of America that we as a superpower Cannot stop another country from pushing us around like that like they are threatening one of our allies and We send new deals sit down and do nothing. We're you know the DMZ but What do we do about that? Like we should act we should act, you know Iran is also threatening us But when it comes to nuclear programs, there's just nothing we can do, you know I don't know. That's my opinion on situations in the US. So, you know That's all I have to say really So now we're back with Aaron Burbank who's pursuing the normal route for most Davis students Who's going to a four-year college UC Davis actually the local choice Now Aaron most people rebel against going to the town college because they're far too close to their parents. How do you feel about this? well, um, I'm gonna be living at home, so It's like the extreme of living being too close to my parents, but um, I don't know I feel like I've heard from a lot of people that are going to UC Davis that even even living at home you still spend so much time on campus and like it's just a completely different life and a Completely different town if you're in college Even if you are living at home, so like I mean you have you have all the options to be in town with your friends You know, it's a lot different And if your parents are you know like good about curfew and stuff like that They probably won't give you a curfew because you're in college. Hopefully they're not giving me one, so I'm pretty happy but it's You have a lot more freedom still it's still significantly Okay, I'm gonna cut you off there So do you plan to stay at home all four years or just the beginning um if if an option becomes realistically possible for me to get a apartment With a couple of friends that would be I guess more ideal than staying at home But then that's gonna cost money So and if I understand it correctly you now live in woodland next to a friend of mine actually shout out to wheeler bills So how are you planning getting to UC Davis? So I don't actually live there yet But will you by the time you are in? Yes, so are you gonna be driving? Yeah And in fact breaking the whole bicycle cycle of Davis. Yeah, this is good though I do not like use a data cyclist for any of you out there. I don't like you at all So like everybody yes, okay Yeah, it's it's a I don't know exactly like what the mileage is between here in woodland, but it would be Tiring exhausting to go for I think it's about 15 but maybe a little less you'd be 17 to Sacramento, but Just it would be exhausting to do that right before class and then have to sit through like a three-hour lecture So sweaty also. Yeah gorgeous.  I want to sit next to you So what classes what are you majoring in? I'm gonna be majoring in history minoring in film so I don't know how that's gonna go because there's like no jobs in either of them, so We'll see we'll see what happens great. You can be happy Yeah, and I'm a cardboard box, but Well, and how are the film classes that you see Davis? It's a really small film department. It's like It's within the art department Like there's like a very small film department, but it's still there And you still get to you know go through film theory and you can do all the other aspects of actually producing and making Films and creating films and filming them and editing them and doing all the aspects that you would normally do at a bigger college like maybe UCLA or NYU it's just not gonna be on such a big scale with such, you know high quality equipment Probably is probably gonna be a little bit scaled back. And are you currently working on any films? With you Yes. Yeah All right Well, Aaron, I'm so proud of you for going to UCD and that means you will be with us for even longer So yeah, I'll be great Just excellent So I've seen two of the movies currently in theaters Iron Man 3 and the Great Gatsby I enjoyed both of the movies, which is very rare for me. I typically don't Like movies, but Great Gatsby being the classic American novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald Who is distantly related to Francis Scott Key who wrote our national anthem while sitting on a British boat out in Boston Harbor Now is that related? Yes. There is a harbor in Great Gatsby in which Gatsby looks across and sees a green light which is a symbol for hope and also a symbol for Daisy who he had lost seemingly forever But he gained riches built his whole existence over the mirage of being rich and Powerful and someone that she'd want to marry but she had been married away and gone for five years to another rich polo player So as this story unfolds, I don't want to spoil it any more than I already have it is interspersed with fantastic visual effects by the overly stylish Baz Lerman who also directed Romeo and Juliet And Roman Juliet had Leonardo DiCaprio in it same as Great Gatsby and he did a fabulous job as well as well as Toby McGuire who was known for his role as Spider-Man so seeing him in a different role was confusing to me because he was not Peter Parker and That got me for good half of the movie and on the Iron Man 3. Let's see. I mean Robert Downey Jr. is Fantastic as ever and they had some interesting twists with who the villain was but I Don't know didn't capture me quite as much as the first Iron Man did I I There's a few conflicts with pepper pots Did did you see out of these movies? I haven't seen any of these though. This is I don't give too much away from you But she almost dies you think she dies then she doesn't die and he doesn't die And I thought making her martyr would have been much more interesting because we only need Robert Downey Jr. And I think having a person like Gwyneth Paltrow in that movie just drags him down She's always controlling him like you're Tony Stark. You have all these amazing suits. Why can't you just be your own man? You are nothing without your woman though. I mean just look at Gatsby Is that said Gatsby died when he realized he could never get the love of his life I think he died because he shot in the heart Of a broken heart his heart was not broken He had Daisy in the car and it was actually Daisy that caused his death Daisy ran over the mechanics wife I would do we have a welder in the house Anyways, and so Daisy ran over this woman and then the husband of the I think your wife Due to miscommunication came and hunted down Gatsby and shot him in the heart That is why I died not because I read the book and Daisy ruined everything She caused both their lives to collapse Gatsby could have been a happy rich bootlegger if it wasn't for Daisy argue that Honestly the only conflict in the movie Toby McGuire was just there they Gatsby and Toby McGuire could have been the best bros they could have just had these wild parties They could have been great friends, but no it was all about Daisy He was looking to secure a happy relationship later on in life What what happens when he there could have been a happy relationship Toby McGuire and Gatsby and he would not retire. He was being funded by the crime boss So I don't see why Daisy even had to exist in the story like come on Everyone needs their lady F. Scott Fitzgerald. I am disappointed. Everyone does not need their lady And same with Iron Man 3 Gwyneth Paltrow could have been eliminated and Tony Stark could have been back to being a billionaire Philantropist which and a playboy which he was already so the movies are actually very similar in the aspect that they're rich men who have excellent lives great friends such as Jim Rhodes in Iron Man But it's ruined by a woman and that is the summary of both those movies ruined by Women Okay, I don't think that's true, but that is still in the opinion of these movies.  Yes, Patrick Kreidler and he is a college student So Patrick, where are you going to school? It's your first year, right? Yeah, I just finished up my freshman year at San Diego State University I wouldn't trade it for anything either.  Yeah, they're exactly right. It's been fantastic It's amazing So where did you go to high school? I went to Davis High. Oh, okay It prepared me for college a lot better than I thought it would And what talk what sort of organizations are you involved in my first semester? I rushed a fraternity, which you know, my mom was not too psyched about but my dad was in the same one when he was in college So it's all worth it So I did that first semester first semester is really busy because that is hard to balance out school and all that you know social Stuff But yeah, I know it's um, it's been great. I would advise, you know Kids are gonna be going to four years, especially where Greek life is kind of a big thing to definitely consider rushing It's been one of the better decisions I've made in college Well, there are these stereotypes going around about fraternities about this sort of grimy decadence that seems to surround such houses of alcohol drugs women How would you respond to this? I mean, there's gonna be stereotypes associated with just about anything They're never a hundred percent right, but they're always derived from a little bit of truth There's you know, when you when you're in a fraternity you see some stuff that you can't unsee Just leave it at that. Are they similar to sororities? They're not similar to sororities at all I know there's sorority girls that don't even know they're like big sis's name Like they have no I'd they have like no connection with each other Whereas with a fraternity I actually feel like I can talk to anybody that's in it There are chapter has 180 people in it, which is the biggest On campus and one of the bigger ones in California And I could name just about anybody in our entire house and know where they're from and be able to sit down Have a real conversation with them So I think they're just different that aspect It sounds like it's a really good thing to become involved in when you're just starting off in college Cuz you get to meet people right exactly and like college is a great place to network with people for your future career and stuff like that So it's been it's what influenced me to change my major actually. I came in as a communications major and I saw the you know variety of business emphasis, which is what I think I actually wanted to do all along and Some of the older guys kind of you know nudging me in the right direction and got me interested in the business side of school So changed my major and I haven't really looked back since so as being part of a frat. You actually do Schoolwork. Yeah, we actually we actually do schoolwork. It's kind of tough to wrap your mind around it I'm sure so what made you pick San Diego as your school? Well, like I said my mom went there, so I'd always kind of we take vacations down there all the time It's where my parents met and stuff like that. So I might always kind of been around campus and I don't know I just really liked the vibe I got when I when I visited there as cliche as it sounds I actually was like the way I felt when I was on campus. You had one of those moments where you're like this is Yeah, one of those really girly moments, so so let's go back to school How many classes did you take last? I took 15 units both semesters, so It's five classes that it's a good amount. Yeah, it's a healthy workload. You're gonna be really busy So what advice do you have to the seniors that are coming into college and next year? What would you have done differently? I would have taken more AP tests because their kids they're coming in as Like halfway done with their freshman year just in unit count already, so I would have taken more AP tests and I would have I don't know. I wouldn't like messed around so much in high school like just getting into a good school and Being able to study what you really want to study makes it all worth it So if you were you know if you have to trade off instead of not going to a party in high school and like studying so you can Get the grades to go where you want to go. I say do that because it's all worth it in the end That's inspirational for me as a junior a true scholar Anything else you'd like to share about college or? I mean Rush It's I can't emphasize enough. It was probably the best decision. I made this entire year So you recommend rushing for boys Would you recommend rushing for girls for joining a sorority if they can get along with girls? if they don't already hang out with like mostly dudes in high school because you're gonna be around up around 150 to 170 girls all the time if you're in college and you decide to rush so it's some of you definitely need to consider but Depends person to person I guess It's true that sororities exist for fraternities to take advantage of well. I hope you enjoyed that episode on scrambled That basically wraps up our show shout out to Luke and Cassio Mericotta for being twins Shout out to Ryan Cridler for being on the baseball team. Follow me on Twitter at paper shredder. That'll be on screen Anything else Nora? We're not including that. Why not? We can't include that. We need to close the episode not do a Facebook post But everyone does this We'll redo this one All right. Thanks for joining us here on scrambled Been a great episode tonight Great episode to remember that my opinions on the show are not indicative of that of doing the delegates And we hope you tune in next time to see Nora and Dylan in action and follow me on Twitter


everyone and welcome to our special discussion with Prime Minister the Honourable Alan Chastney. It's part two of a special production looking back at 2019 the achievements and the challenges and in this hour we have the spotlight on health and tourism sector. The health sector, Mr. Prime Minister, is critical and to your own admission and again we go back to your budget address for 2019-2020. You said that dealing with the shortcomings has taken longer than desired however to your credit you have remained resolute in trying to resolve what those issues are. But to the public's mind the issues of healthcare are really boxed in into the commissioning or the non-commissioning of the St. Jude's Hospital and the OKEU, the Owen King EU hospital. But it is as those perhaps who are very entrenched in what's going on a more complex matter. So we'll get to expound on what those complications are but first we'll review some of the highlights of the sector for 2019. Remaining a concern to both the government and citizens health issues were and continue to be tackled by various interventions. The two main hospitals were in sharp focus throughout 2019. To ensure proper healthcare to citizens in the south the government embarked on the construction of a new St. Jude Hospital. The 90 bed facility will cater for both inpatient and outpatient services. In the north the phased transition from the Victoria Hospital to the OKEU continued in 2019 with the physiotherapy, dialysis and outpatient units along with the IT department and sections of the laboratory. Recognizing that the biggest deficiency in the nation's healthcare system is that tens of thousands of St. Lucians are unable to afford healthcare the government has pushed forward with the national health insurance program. This program aims to ensure that all St. Lucians have health insurance with government bearing the cost to cover the vulnerable elderly and unemployed. The World Bank health system strengthening project is well poised to push the primary healthcare agenda forward because this project is committed to the implementation of national health insurance while ensuring that our primary healthcare facilities are equipped to deliver services which will promote preventative care of the population. In 2019 the government also launched their health system strengthening project. The new system is aimed at improving health coverage to St. Lucians. The project is aimed at improving accessibility efficiency and responsiveness of key health services and how do we aim to achieve that? For accessibility the NHI will definitely address that in terms of our benefits package given our population access to a specified benefits package. Efficiency will look at how we make our healthcare providers more accountable, how we treat our patients according to protocols. In an effort to reduce morbidity and mortality in terms of the number of persons in St. Lucia being stricken with certain diseases, the Ministry of Health embarked on an island-wide immunization drive to ensure all children at the age of five were assessed and vaccinated. The aim of this initiative was to reduce the need for hospitalization and medication and the cost that comes along with it. A look back there at some of the highlights in the health sector for 2019. We go straight into the big interest matters St. Jude's Hospital. So much had been said on what was found, how it was going to be dealt with and then dealing with it. Now we have seen progress being made down at the site for St. Jude's Hospital. You are comforted that we are making strides in your own estimation. Absolutely. I mean it was a very difficult process and one in which I think that we had to exercise the greatest amount of discipline in that given the amount of political pressure as well as public pressure would cause you maybe to do something that would not be to the benefit of the country in the long run. That was the tough part and particularly when we met with the workers and the staff at the St. Jude's in the stadium. I mean put yourself in these people's shoes that on the fire moved into their miraculous job were expecting that maximum a year it turned out to be then two years then it turned out to be five years then it turned out to be seven years and now they're on the verge of making it to nine possibly ten years. On more than one occasion they were told prepare yourself to move and to be disappointed. So I would say to you of all the people that we've met their story was the most compelling and I understand and when we were having to meet with them to go through the process that it wasn't as simple as looking at a building and saying well just fix up the building because it's better than the stadium. Yes it would have been but we would have spent a tremendous amount of money where we have already spent money so it's money on top of money and we would not have built a facility that would have been able to facilitate and support the development that's taking place in the south that's the reality and yes would it be better than what it is anything would be better than the stadium but it was the strength I think that hopefully at some point people will look back and say okay my administration did do the right thing in what they did so the problem was first of all we didn't expect to find the problem we had you know we were told the hospital was going to open up in July of 2016 it's when minister Joseph and minister Isaac went they said that's not happening we then went and found that it was a letter that was written to the former prime minister in April of 2016 telling him it wasn't going to open in July and they needed another 60 million dollars and possibly it would open at the end of 2016 so first of all they already knew themselves they needed more money and that there was still going to be time required to be able to finish off the thing I then sent an independent auditor physical auditor and the person came back and said boy prime minister there's a lot of deficiencies in this in this hospital I mean if you just walked into the emergency ward and compared it to okay EU you could see automatically the difference things like the MRI machine and X-ray machine were being put on the ground floor they were told not to do that the ceiling was too low so what did they do they dug it down so you actually go down on a ramp to make it to where those facilities are going to be the ramp to take you upstairs too steep and too narrow I look I can go on forever but the point was is that the amount of money that was going to require to be able to make that facility work became more and more difficult and we went through the process of trying to say okay given the complexity of the situation given the need to get into a better facility than the in the stadium can we put a temporary facility and the amount of money that that was going to cost made no sense for us to be able to do that so eventually once the decision was made that we would build a new facility was to get the money get the designs done which we did we've gotten planning approval and now work has begun and we're trying to get into that facility before the end of this year is what the goal is we have but in some quarters the thought the thinking is that really and truly your administration is just providing a sort of glorified polyclinic and not giving solutions a hospital there's nothing further from the truth you know it's a 90 bed facility in fact I'm going to go on record in here and say to you that I think that the facility that we're building at St. Jude's is even better than what was built at oku and I'm on record saying that and I think that when the facility is done people will be able to physically go and look at the two and make that decision now why is that when you look at the the plan that we have for solution we have said that in order to be able to double or triple the GDP view for it has to come up can't have this all this land and all this potential sitting there undeveloped and so we're already starting to see it so cruise ship facility coming in new hotels coming in industrial parks being expanded new business parks coming in a secondary home market so you need a proper hospital yes for the view fortunes themselves people from the south people from my constituency but also now if you're going to be able to be successful and competitive on a global basis and create an international city you need a hospital that meets that standard most importantly this sort of re-rehabitation the expansion for here in our international because there are particular requirements for being able to have a healthcare facility within the vicinity absolutely absolutely so I'm look I'm very encouraged by what we're doing I'm very proud of what we're achieving I think that once it's completed the people will be very proud but sadly many people are missing the point with healthcare in thinking that the success of healthcare is the commissioning of ok eu and victoria they're important elements of it but by themselves are not the solution to the healthcare problems and solution and quickly the ok eu the update on that uh we talk about consultancy in terms of being able for for management um we know that there has been these are transfer some of those services uh in there so where are we at with that uh with respect to how much closer are we to seeing the ok eu being commissioned so again I want to thank the Europeans for the gift in the first place but sadly uh the government was not ready so you have a facility that's been finished for seven years so we're having now to replace the air condition system because it wasn't it was never turned on the MRI MRI machine that never worked never once did one patient is now having to be replaced electrical systems breakers ventilation systems drainage systems all having to be redone uh so every day I'm being presented with another bill to operationalize ok eu but we're not daunted we've come too far not to be able to complete this process uh and what the problem was is that both for ok eu and sin jude given the size that they are and the cost of operating a hospital okay the cost of running a bed at a hospital is about 500 000 us dollars a year so you do not keep people in hospitals when it's unnecessary so prepping people should be done in in other facilities and post operation and recovery needs to be done in other facilities so they just really come in for the operational procedure at the main hospital and and I don't mean get out but we remove somewhere else to a less or costly facility so that was the assumption and the ability to go from uh victory of 170 beds to ok eu for 120 beds I inherited that sadly there was assumptions the assumptions were that you would fix up the primary healthcare facilities so right now it's no secret to solutions if I fall sick or have an emergency am I going to go to the hospital or am I going to one of my polyclinics first I guarantee you the vast majority if not all solutions are rushing to the hospital the emergency center can't cope with the numbers of people and being people are being admitted into the hospital who don't need to be admitted to hospital so they're occupying now a very expensive bed and this this the system to be able to pay for all these services has been input in place you really believe that any semi-intelligent person can't go to victoria hospital and start pointing out the deficiencies though they are very glaring by the way glaring so who who in their right mind would want to have that so the reason why it's that way is they don't have the money that's the reality so the state doesn't have the money the state doesn't have the money either state where they've been running deficits all we do is we have money to pay salaries because that's the one in which if you don't pay that then all hell breaks loose but if there isn't enough medicine if there is not the sheets if there isn't enough food if a piece of equipment's not replaced right then people don't make as big of an issue about those things but they hold you and your government accountable when it's not available but sadly I mean and look I say this because sadly people have become accustomed to that level of service not to say that they're happy with it but we've become accustomed to it based on expectation of their right to be able to have access to healthcare and for the government to pay for it I'm not justifying it I'm just saying to you that that's what I inherited I inherited we inherited a grossly inadequate system in which mediocrity was what the order of the day was so opening up a hospital doesn't resolve that problem the thousands of people in this country that don't have access to healthcare because they don't have the money are terrified to go to the doctor because if the doctor gives them a prescription they can't get it anyway people who are on high blood pressure pills and only take the pill when they get a headache as if they was taking an aspirin so I'm hearing you saying that for Saint Lucians perhaps you believe that we've not been able to reconcile what the reality is and I think the world over if people were to do some reading do some research and countries around the world healthcare remains one of the most expensive sectors for any government it is but for any nation because most governments don't get deeply involved in the healthcare sector it is but I'm saying you to you is that the vast majority of people in solution or a lot of people in solution believe that the most important part of what we're trying to do in healthcare is the operationalization of okay EU and St. Jude's but I think that's not because the buildings are so dilapidated or they're nonexistent and I hear you and we're fixing them but that's not the biggest problem the biggest problem is the affordability of healthcare and putting a system in which it's going to be able to maintain the standards in order to be give people quality healthcare and so the most important thing that my administration is doing is healthcare insurance that's going to be the greatest gift and speaking about that again I want to remind you that during your budget presentation what you said was that legislative and institutional changes would be required to facilitate the full establishment of the national health insurance scheme so are we making headway where that is concerned making great headway I mean and again I want to thank the World Bank and their technical teams and Paho and the Ministry of Health and NIC who've been working with us to get through this process so basically what we're trying to do is introduce a healthcare insurance that will be managed by through NIC and which that once you have a job that you're going to be expected to make a contribution and your businesses make a contribution and it's going to become compulsory so today it's not and so on average a thousand to twelve hundred dollars a year is what people would have to pay to get healthcare insurance we're seeing if everybody participates that number is going to come down significantly so government will pay the premiums for the unemployed the vulnerable and the elderly right everybody else who's working will make a contribution along with the employers anybody who currently has insurance can keep their insurance or they can come and join our insurance so a small business who've not been providing it will get the benefit of coming into a very affordable insurance program our insurance program will cover basic stuff so it'll cover private doctor visits it'll provide basic operations it will provide prescriptions right but what you can do is you can top up that insurance if you want to now be able to be covered for bigger operations or more intrusive surgery so that's a huge step in the right direction now what's the biggest benefit of this is we now can start tackling healthcare in this country we will know because everybody now will go to a doctor so we don't have to guess what the state of health of our country is we will know absolutely what the state of health how many people have high blood pressure how many people are pre-diabetic how many people are advanced etc and everything else it means that the ministry of health now can introduce preventive programs to address that and because now we can continue getting uh checkups from everybody else we can see that we're making progress so what do we know that some of the most costly diseases we have here are non-cunricle diseases right high blood pressure and diabetes people because they can't afford to go to the doctors are waiting until they're almost a critical point they have to either be amputated or go in the dialysis machine or have reached the point of high blood pressure they're going to have to go off work or they've almost borderline stroke or have had a stroke so it means that the state now is getting them when they are in this critical position it becomes a humanitarian cry to give you an example we've allocated eight hundred thousand dollars a year to be able to help people with their health care um a cost for two years in a row we've broken five and a half million dollars and their list of people wanting to get support still continues to come in okay it's not doable and we're doing it because we all have a conscience we're all sensitive and have a tremendous amount of empathy with the people who are coming in who just don't have the money how many families have lost their homes how many people have had to cash in their pensions simply either to help themselves or to help a family member of which now they've gotten sick so this is destroying our country so this health care insurance is actually the most important thing because now it allows people to go and get treated it also means that we're dealing with things beforehand we can have programs to prevent it now here's an amazing thing as you now improve the health of your nation the cost of health care comes down why because less people are getting sick and therefore the insurance has to cover less so we're now having to deal with cancer dealing with car accidents and then therefore your insurance premiums will be able to come down so when we came in none of this was in place none of the primary facilities were ready no money had been allocated 10 million EC dollars is what was allocated to move into okay EU and as I said that they they weren't even finished with St. Jude's that already spent almost 130 million dollars at St. Jude's and it was even close to be finished now again unlike what people are saying whatever demolitions have to take place there were some little buildings that had to be demolished because they were grossly unsafe and inadequate but in the existing building the one that they built what we're saying let's make that into a university if we can get a medical university in that location we'll be the only island in the country in the region that has a medical university attached to a hospital so for an internships and training purposes that's a huge advantage and we are in discussions with three companies looking at the possibility for them to be able to do that I think that's going to be a huge win-win situation for all of us speaking about the strengthening of our primary health care sector smart facilities great program with funding from the UK government under its different programs so 20 17 health centers were being upgraded as part of that smart project and I list them all in just a bit the IMF again I want to go back and refer there because it gives a good indication as to where we're at that conclusion said that the government gets credit for its commitment to resilience but it underscored that some considered efforts are really needed to mobilize climate financing so we get points for being able to recognize that we have to do more for the health care infrastructure in making it more resilient but again the money aspects being able to mobilize for that so first of all primary health care services and making them green and the resilience part of it so there is so was a beneficiary of that so the goal here was that we put in a water tank we put in a backup generator we put in LED lights we put in cameras so that if there was a hurricane that they become self-sufficient for a period of time versus in the old days they didn't have that if they became isolated they were closed down and there were actually no use to people and medicine that was in there would not be refrigerated so it's not every primary health care service is going to do that but it's being spread all around the country in order to make sure that there's diversity in that and I really want to thank DFID and PAHO for that level of assistance but in addition to that we're fixing up over 33 facilities and adding equipment to them in order that people now feel more comfortable going there first so in order to take that stress off of the main hospitals and to allow them to be able to work two things will happen one is that for instance if you go to the hospital you have an operation and you get a bandage you should be able to go back home and you don't have to go back to the hospital to be able to get the bandage changed you can go now to your um uh the one at Santa yes or a polyclinic to be able to get that done and that takes a tremendous one it's easier for them but that's the level of of skills that we want to have in our nurses in addition to that the educational program will be done through those centers as well so I mean in my case in dare so because things kept breaking in nobody wanted to stay there alone right so it just basically by putting the fencing up putting the cameras around and and strengthening it it helps significantly in that in that regard so I'm very excited about that in terms of resilience you're 100 right it costs money what we've been arguing on a global basis and I'm very proud that Senlusha has been taking the lead and I really want to thank Dr. Ribergert for the amount of traveling that she has done the work that she's been doing behind the scenes in terms of really pushing this initiative is how do we can get monies available to us to be able to build more resilience and Senlusha has made a decision in our roads in our facilities we're currently building we're building that resilience in some of the other countries are in significantly more debt and don't have the capacity so I'm fighting also for them but there are some bigger issues let's take VG beach as an example when we did the modeling and if the water level rises by three feet that VG beach actually will go right across the runway and connect to Gantor's Bay and VG will become an island so how do you resolve that problem so what we think is we have to do is bring a maritime coastal team in look at the possibility of creating a fake reef further out and reclaim some of the beach so what will happen is when the heavy waves come their fake reef helps cut the energy and helps stop now all the sand from coming apart and it pushes now the problem further back out cool the sack cool the sack is going to flood if the water level rides you can already see that the sea level and the river level are parallel to each other so the question is how do you resolve that problem do you drain the area do you create better drains do you create a reservoir so the fresh water comes down and you hold the reservoir and we then pump it out so means you build a wall like a dam down at the bottom those are the things that we have to look at but once we've discovered what we're supposed to do where's the money going to come from and sadly none of these things are going to improve the capacity of the country what they do is help now prevent the country from damaging or if we have a major hurricane that the recovery isn't as bad as it would be if we had didn't have those things in place and that's what the challenge that we have on a global basis so debt to GDP access to OECD monies how is that debt going to be treated and then how quickly can we get the money and also implement the projects I mean the different project that we have is money that was given by prime minister Cameron for the west coast road and we were hoping to get it started in 2020 so it's taken almost eight years to be able to execute that program you hear the complaint with CDB I mean CDB is a great agency and they're only following the rules that they have but it's not the swiftest agency particularly when you're dealing with climate change why every year there's a new hurricane season so time is against us and so this is why we're trying to push the envelope do the advocacy that we're doing in terms of getting the world to change its mind or where the World Bank is helping us and maybe now creating a foundation the we'll present a paper at the heads of government meeting in caracom in February we're hoping then we can get it approved by the multilateral agencies at the spring meeting and then we have this year the Commonwealth meeting which is taking place in Rwanda while we're there because 34 SIDS small island development states are members of the Commonwealth we're hoping that we can all sign on now to this foundation and that now this becomes a vehicle to allow development agencies and countries to be able to provide funds to be able to help the SIDS resolve this climate change problem and as we go to break let me just list what these smart facilities are right here in St. Lucia we have the comfort based citizen senior senior students home the La Clare wellness center the VFO wellness center the transit home derisso belvi and monripo saltibus mogu the lafag wellness center bexon library and rich for wellness center marshy entripotiroshi and the castries wellness center so across the island there you could see a broad spectrum of what's happening to make us more resilient at least in the healthcare sector stay with us when we come back we are discussing tourism the world's climate is changing and that affects all of us storms are becoming increasingly intense periods of intense drought and heavy rain stress farm animals and destroy our cross higher average ocean temperatures kill our coral reefs and change the migratory patterns of fish st lucia contributes only 0.0015 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions but is doing its part along with countries around the world to reduce the emissions that are warming our world and changing our climate these efforts are called mitigation but decades of emissions have already changed the climate and the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere today will increase average global temperatures even more we need to adapt that is do everything we can to prepare for and respond to the actual unexpected negative effects of climate change and everyone has a role to play we need to protect our crops build homes that withstand storms and keep our drains and waterways free of garbage to help us recover or bounce back from climatic events learn more about the government of st lucia's national adaptation plan and the steps you can take to protect yourself and your fellow st lucians and welcome back to our discussion with prime minister the honorable alan chastney we're discussing the year in review 2019 tourism st lucia has had an unprecedented year of success in this highly competitive global industry we experienced a seven percent increase in arrivals over 2018 and our stayover arrivals for 2019 so like in the regional 400 000 so again unprecedented for us so we'll take a look now at some of the highlights in that sector we'll come and back to expound and some of those points throughout 2019 st lucia's tourism industry experienced record highs in all areas from arrivals stayover and crews to airlift product development and investment an unprecedented 1.3 million visitors came to the island shores 400 000 was the overs representing a 7.1 percent increase over 2018 solidifying st lucia as one of the fastest growing tourist destinations in the eastern caribbean essential to the sector's growth is elifed american airlines in 2019 expanded services to st lucia introducing a non-stop american airlines flight from chicago on december 21 up until november 2019 american airlines had provided 100 000 seats to destination st lucia representing 43 percent of the seating capacity out of the united states the cruise sector also recorded successes following the expansion of birthing facilities at point seraphine that enables the accommodation of vista quantum and freedom class vessels on november 15 with a capacity of 1800 passengers and over 750 crew the mv mariella explorer too made its inaugural call in podcastries the senior marketing manager the st lucia tourism authority was among officials who welcomed the vessel efforts at improving the island's tourism product and heightening the visitor experience continued in 2019 you would have seen the renovation of the market preparatory stage which has already commenced you would have seen the relocation of the vendors we would have trained about 200 vendors to be part of this new initiative that we're doing to ensure that we can advance greater economic penetration in the sector main time the oasis regional tourism competitiveness project is undertaking the pedestrianization of the william peter boulevard of a side improvement program for existing small businesses and the upgrading of sidewalks the st lucia summer festivals seized as the 2019 jazz festival returned to form a collaboration with the lincoln center of new york featured prolific jazz musicians from the home front the region and international on the hills of the st lucia jazz festival st lucia carnival came to life in july attracting increased participation from st lucia's and visitors in fact there was a 13 percent increase in tourist arrivals for the month over july 2018 st lucia's demand in the tourism market was underpinned with a prestigious title of world's leading honeymoon destination for a record 11th time the announcement was made on november 28th at the 26th annual gala ceremony of the world travel awards in oman the winning streak continued with the minister for tourism being named caribbean tourism minister of the year by the caribbean travel awards honorable dominic fede was described as having stood at a destination that is one of the hottest in the caribbean and has become a haven for high-profile investment glittering sands beach park located at toulanger on october 15 became the newest addition to the tourism product owned and operated by st lucia's the facility employs more than 20 persons from the constituency of ancillary can reads the beach park welcomed the first group of over 50 cruise ship guests for a fantastic day in paradise st lucia's talents were showcased at carifest of 14 held in trinidad and tobago the offering was a mix of theater music literary arts performance poetry traditional performances visual arts craft and fashion the performances included a showcase of our laurels festival and a theatrical performance of a little folk tale written by monique ogis and jesse myers and directed by artistic director junior fedrick the world is celebrated along the island as it commemorated 40 years of independence his royal highness prince charles made an official visit to st lucia a special ceremony was held in view fort in his honor above all ladies and gentlemen it gives me particular pride that st lucia today is such a vital member of our commonwealth family which binds together 2.4 billion of us across 53 countries on six continents through our shared experience and common values and the physical embodiment of our talent and creativity now stands at the castries waterfront master sculptor jolly mutovic producer statue that captures the essence of bane's inclusion this is your sculpture st lucia from grozny to barbuno from castries to denry from mico to view fort from library to showzel from souffle to canaries from ancillary back to castries this sculpture is symbolic of how far we've come and where we want to go a look there at some of the highlights of 2019 in this area of tourism and we did include culture in there because the two are certainly intimate now for the government your aim is to increase gdp contributions to a staggering 1.9 billion dollars by 2022 the hope also is to attract investments of 3.5 billion also by 2022 and to create over 4 000 jobs in the tourism sector some people may say a bit ambitious look we've developed a master plan for tourism which includes a branding position as well as a strategic plan and how to diversify the tourism the tourism product we're not only looking at larger hotels and higher end hotels but also very excited about our village tourism program to be able to help solutions to be able to get more involved in the market you know the sandy beach project ansa sab is probably one of my favorite projects ever it's funny because when sir john was alive and before anything had been built on the causeway pigeon island the concept that we're using there is what we want i wanted him to use on pigeon island which basically would be to not allow development on the beach but have like some kind of boardwalk that would separate the hotels from the beach and then create a village and so subdivide it and allow smaller properties to be able to prosper and to create something that's much more culturally relevant to what your destination is people looking for more authentic vacations clearly there are people who like to go to all-incluses and bigger all-incluses and there are people who like the uniqueness of a jade mountain or a sugar beach but there are more and more people who want to go to intimate ends and go to places where they don't get to see what they get back home and so it's how do you create an environment to nurture that culture of yours and sandy beach is exactly that so the a new road will be built along the fence of the airport going into the view fort town where bank of Nova Scotia is the land between the concrete road and going back to the the the city of view fort will be subdivided water sewage electricity being put in a building ordinance we put in special incentives and so it means a solution now can buy 10,000 square feet of land water electricity and sewage is already there you don't have to borrow the money for all of that have special incentives and then now there's a development around them and that is much easier for them to be able to sell with the cruise ship port coming into view fort for home porting pre and post days means that people could now go and stay in sandy beach the goal is to have an access of a thousand rooms in that location we also know that there is development of smaller properties around the island so we're creating a new entity called village tourism incorporated which of course answer and grows the end so far are the lead communities or the villages uh right now so so well village tourism incorporated and village tourism are are part of a of a same circle but they're not exactly the same projects so the projects in ancillary grozolet and souffert about building the physical infrastructure to support it so if i want to have a small guest house now in souffert downtown souffert souffert it's become more feasible i can go to the hummingbird beach to go for the day to the beach the square is there we're now redeveloping the waterfront and it's now in a very attractive town the goal is now to build up on the restaurants and create a water taxi service so people from and shasney or from sugar beach now can take a water taxi and come into town and walk around town and go to these small restaurants in that particular it's to do the same thing in ancillary right i think it would be very difficult for a small guest house to survive in ancillary with the same with the current uh standards you would see there grozolet has done a better job but there's still improvements that have to be done in the grozolet town i.e. the beach facilities the drains clearing up in proper ordinances building back up the older building so that it continues the character of of of the village so physically there will be village tourism but the company we're creating is called village tourism incorporated so what happens is if i want to be able to get into the tourism business let's say i worked at the hotel as a front desk manager or i was a reservations manager or a food and beverage manager i won't open up a restaurant i go in i i am tested by the group in terms of what are my deficiencies are and if you're opening up a small guest house we will give you the accounting system we will give you the booking system we will give you the marketing tools we will provide the training for your line staff and for your middle management on a regular basis we'll give you advice on your interior decorating we will now help you source your towels and your sheets and your soaps and so starting to create a minimum standard so there are europeans and other people who want to come to st lucha for two three weeks and stay at different properties so that those properties have to be relatively same in terms of standard i mean switzerland and austria have been doing this for years france this is one of the oldest types of tourism and it's my favorite type of tourism um ever is village tourism that's why my family when i had a choice of building a hotel i built it in rodney bay not on the beach built it off the beach because that's the confidence i have in that kind of product but unfortunately rodney bay is still not of standard to make village tourism come to life and this is what we want to be able to do it to be successful and sustainable your local population must be involved must be benefiting and then when you bring it to a scale the likelihood of a smaller restaurant and a smaller restaurant buying food from the farmers and buying products from all the other suppliers is much greater than when you're a bigger hotel you have economies of scale and therefore you can bring it in from abroad much easier so the goal is really to make sure that we have a balance in what we're doing from a tourism perspective and building up the rooms um and making the economic impact we think is necessary so part of the part of the plan for product development has to do with castries the beautification of castries included in that is the rehabilitation of the castries market so that plan uh people are looking forward to a timeline because we've seen bumper to bumper a traffic now with the crews the passengers i'm coming in so where are we at with timeline to regarding that so um the redevelopment of castries market the plan has already been completed and i really want to uh congratulate mr poyat i mean he is really a gem in this country in terms of you know he did the derrick walcott home he did the um the square and sue fair many buildings around slusha you know it was his inspiration um and really he's a for me a cultural icon and a person i have a tremendous amount of respect for so the plan has already been done we've started with the place where the vendors go in the back so a new roof um new resurfacing they're now about to do the bathrooms they're putting in now next to where the the marketing board is to put in a container a container park for selective smaller shops then we will start developing the interior of the building including the old building itself so the goal here is to create an atmosphere um that small restaurants can thrive that vendors now start becoming franchisees so what i want to see is i want to see the vendors become franchisees to the the uh arts and craft segment here so people who are producing pots people who are producing baskets um these young people in terms of costumes and natural soap products so the idea is that they would help the vendor design their stall help them design their uniform teach them how to sell their product and also provide them with a price spectrum so now you're not going to see that every vendor is selling the exact same thing uh and that they're going to be able to add value and so a tourist walking around is going to be able to smell see and hear and taste slusha you know uh my vendors who are on um jeremy street right now nobody's got a blender and mixing fresh juices this is the kind of stuff that we need to start seeing and that's what's going to happen at the castries market and that you're going to have a variety of standards so basic products all the way to arts and paintings in the area small restaurants so a tourist going in can get the flavors of slusha me looking for a restaurant to eat in slusha i can go there it's almost like being in a bazaar um so when we went to borough's market in london this is what we're really sampling behind and i have to tell you ecstatic about what we're going to be doing there followed by the demolishing of the print tree um i'd like to think the parliament but the parliament will probably be on hold for temporarily and then the courthouse but the ultimate goal is constitution park will be a park so when i'm standing at the castries market and i look back i'm going to see the cathedral which now is going to connect us to the uh um derrick walkett square now again he's also getting a facelift yes how can you have a person and name a park after derrick and it looks the way it does a cultural icon of this country both in um all forms of the arts where where where where do i see that in that place and normally when you have iconic parks you will see restaurants and activity around it where is it car park around it so the goal is to really change that um the customs building sheds four and five start clearing out the place so that now that those become pedestrian ears and you allow the other city to be able to breathe moving the container port now the cul-de-sac getting we want to be able to put a convention center and and now new or older buildings in the location cdc's we're looking into demolish those buildings but we want to make sure that we have a place to relocate people before we do that that will become now the new government center um so you'll have your high court you have your prime minister's office you have um parliament um you have now certain government buildings that are going to be in that location and so there's this character and i want to be able to walk through castries we're talking about benans i love benans you know nobody's talking about removing the people from benans but we're talking about improving the quality of the facilities getting the dock going back again and you talked about congestion so why not have it from point serif and we have a little ferry that carries the passengers that want to go on tour to the south take them to the benans all the buses are waiting for them there now you don't have all those buses going through what i call the gauntlet move the taxis that are currently by class carinage still have them on the inside but they go and collect their bus down by sheds four and five so when they're leaving they're leaving in front of this last building so again you're not congestion the town so these are all obvious decisions but for some reason everybody's scared to pull the trigger on these things and that's what i'm very excited about we've spent the year redoing the plans because when i made the pronouncements everybody said oh there was no consultation but i think people forgot the fact that there was an intensive consultation in 2000 and 2000 2007 and 2008 but guess what went back to the process met with everybody again and pretty much the same plans but do you think that not pulling the trigger really has to do with the cost that is attached to all what you have described there it sounds all wonderful it's great but how do we pay for it so we um have cut a deal with the cruise industry um to allow them to manage both our castries port and our view for port that's the mo u that we signed with roll caribbean and carnival they're in fact bringing down with them uh accompanied it to review our plans finesse them in whatever way that they think it's going to be possible so we've borrowed 13 million us dollars to do the redevelopment of the castries market which is part of the loan agreement that we have of the time when these government we are um uh spending our own money to demolish the existing buildings and to put in the proper parks and then when the cruise industry comes in they're prepared to also bring cash to the table um so they've agreed to look at their tax structure and we've looked at our tax structure um in terms of of having a tax on that will help now pay for these these different developments that we're going to do it we're meeting with the EU um and also cdb about the infrastructure that's required in castries sewage we know that water is leaking um putting in better utilities how we're going to deal with the surface waters how we're going to expand some of the roads and create now the whole new traffic network so again by accessing development funds to be able to do that so it's still going to cost us money but at least it's on a more concessional basis we believe the return comes in by bringing more business to town 430 castries is dead okay we have a private sector investment that's going to go into point serif and we're going to build merit courtyard we're hoping to begin and break ground break ground very soon we've got a plan for redeveloping the shops they're horrible and and the fact is is it can't have a facility on prime land like that there's only there for the cruise industry i want to see point serif from being used seven days a week all the time by locus and visitors like you know as well as the tourism industry is doing and the plans that you've just um outlined there sound really good and then asked about how are we paying for it you spoke about looking at the tax regime and so forth the hotel accommodation tax or fee if you want to use if that's a more dumbed-down word uh it has been announced that it's being introduced and it's not something off the cuff we've heard about it being in the in the pipeline for a while now but there is that public concern that really and truly you're sort of overburdening the one sector that is keeping st luccia afloat so sadly i could have rewritten the article st luccia is the first country in the caribbean to reduce the vat rate on tourism but then you're saying that you're taking away but you also undercutting so so the point that's i'm saying that's why i said you i could rewrite the story and say to you that st luccia is reducing the vat rate on tourism from 10 percent to seven percent and then applying a fee correct so it's a it's what we call a revenue neutral tax so the purpose of doing what we're doing is in order to allow the monies to be collected directly off of the of the the uh tourist and it's a user fee of st luccia right so they're paying if they're staying at a smaller property three dollars per person per night if they're staying at a larger property six dollars per person per night okay that money is going directly into the tourism authority so that means the tourism authority is no longer dependent on the tourism budget so the 35 or 40 million dollars a year that we're putting into the tourism authority that stops by being now a separate entity like slasper because that's how slasper makes this money off of taxes and revenues that is generating at the port both of the airport and at the seaport it means it has its own budget has its own board because there's too many restrictions to it when it's operating within the government context i mean you remember me when i was director of tourism absolutely when i was minister of tourism constantly complaining that the cash flow of money all of a sudden when you're doing well is when government cuts back on the revenue and that you fight in cabinet every day because people see this as money that could go to health care or education or infrastructure which all need but the fact is is that investing doing marketing is an investment a brand is a value so the better known your brand is the better it helps bananas the better it helps our rums better helps you when you travel and that people know where solution is okay there is that's an asset value to the state that we continue to be able to invest in and that's why we say the solutions you know when we're committing crime or we do things against the tourists what we're doing is we're undermining our own brand because those are the stories that are going to be remembered out there so i don't want people to think that they should do it for tourism do it for yourself do it for brand st lusia let's be known as one of the best places to live the best places to invest that's the story that we want outside there so the changes that we've made are to facilitate making that happen and so therefore there will be no increase in the cost of coming to st lusia but structurally now we've made it much more efficient in order for the monies to go into the tourism authority and for the tourism authority now to be able to spend the money the deal that i did with the cruise with the hoteliers is very simple there were deficiencies in the old st lusia tourist board too much money was being spent on overheads too much money was being spent on events okay which they were understanding what the value to the branding was so we structured that we've taken events out we put some restrictions in and how much money can be spent on an administrative basis and to make sure that there is greater efficiency and more accountability in building our brand but now people are concerned that what's happening to the tourism industry is that now st lusia becomes a more expensive destination i just said that's not the case so if you reduce the vat rate but you put it back on as a form of a head tax your revenue neutral so that's what we're saying is that the cost of coming to st lusia hasn't been has not been affected would not be affected at all pending projects in the tourism industry you did speak about the sandy beach project during the budget you did indicate that we would be having no more less than five or so projects so where we are with that are we still so uh on stream cabot which is a new golf course hotel and real estate project is broken ground so they're doing 90 rooms and 18 who golf course and 300 real estate lots i'm extremely saddened over the sandals project to be honest with you now that's a project that should have started and actually would have been coming to completion right now it would have added almost 400 new suites to st lusia on a piece of land that is only earmarked for tourism development it's the piece of land that lies between sandals grand and the landings sadly the landings decided to challenge the dca in their decision they lost the the first case and they've decided to appeal and the developer basically is holding off because he feels it's too large of an investment to take that risk it was a very difficult position for me because i really want to let all my investors in my country know that this is a good place to invest and we follow the rule of law so that would have that's a significant delay and we would have already been feeling the economic benefit and the momentum from that happening but i'm still hoping that that project is going to happen is that the only stalled project because you did mention that the hilton yep so what so what happened well not hilton we had hilton going in at rex and we were plans were completed everything hilton first which was at rex and we were very advanced and then the rex people decided to do a partnership with sunwing with the same people who were doing the world team not only on the san lucha project but on all of their developments around the island of the country so granada tobacco and antigen particular so it means you have to go back to the drawing board um my understanding is they're pretty far advanced in their concepts they're looking at i think it's a planet hollywood to go where the building was demolished because they had gone as far as to demolish the building uh they're rebranding the old world solution into mystique or mystique i think moustique um and then they're also going to be developing a new branded property where papeo is uh so that is supposed to be starting later this year we then have the hyatt project which is going to go in shock so there's an 800 room property 400 rooms all inclusive 400 rooms e p with also major conference facilities um you have the marriott courtyard that's coming here at point seraphim uh you have the uh sabbushah project which now is going to be a park hyatt so originally that was going to be a fairmont and there was new owners that came in um and have taken over that property so we're hoping that that's going to get started very soon the uh people at dsh are developing um their first hotel which would be right next to the site what's exciting is that hotel is also going to be a university um with luzan university which is phenomenal i mean you're talking about the best um hospitality university in the world and solutions will be given access to that university on a very affordable um basis but once you become a graduate of luzan you can get a job anywhere anywhere in the world we have like 30 seconds left you have canals which is the honeymoon beach this weekend this weekend uh january 15th we're breaking ground uh so very exciting times and there are other things but i want to wait until they're more advanced before we announce them we've now concluded our second hour with prime minister the honorable adam chastney as we look back at some of the events of 2019 and our final hour will be discussing infrastructure as well as citizen safety very key areas for us stay with us as we come back with our third hour i'm lisa joseph see you on the other side


It's the season of high spirits and festive decorations. To enjoy it all, be certain your Christmas tree is beautiful and safe. If you buy a natural tree, make sure it's fresh. There should be no brittle branches, no shedding needles. Put your tree in a steady holder filled with water and keep all trees natural and artificial away from heat sources. Check lights for frayed wires, loose connections, broken or cracked sockets. Always unplug tree lights before you go out or to bed. Never leave a lighted tree alone. Choose decorations with care too. Make sure all your trimmings are non-combustible or flame resistant. And be prepared to act fast should a fire emergency develop. Your local fire emergency number is on the inside front cover of the telephone directory. Keep it handy near the phone. Then have a happy, safe holiday season.