 Welcome to Nation Beat. I am General Norville bringing you this brief on the pulse of our nation and highlights around the heart of St Lucia. St Lucia's economic trajectory has been positively assessed by the International Monetary Fund. The public is urged to utilize the avenues available at the Bureau of Standards for their protection as consumers, and early detection remains one of the best defences against cancer. St Lucia's economic trajectory has been positively assessed by the International Monetary Fund, IMF, and its published World Economic Outlook, October 2018. The document takes into consideration the global factors that affect a country's performance. Minister in the Ministry of Finance, the Honourable Dr. Yobaldes Raymond, citing the passage of Tropical Storm Cook, which significantly affects the agriculture sector, indicated that St Lucia remains vulnerable to such unforeseen factors. We always have to be cautious, because our economies are so fragile, and any outside shocks can affect our economies, especially St Lucia. So, while these projections are there, we are cautious to report this is exactly what we will get. Again, these are just projections based on information covered within the various government departments, the private sector, and the policies of the government. These are just projections. The good thing about it is the projections of last year kind of mimic what the real estimate came out to be. So, I'm hoping that there would not be any disturbances in the external markets or economies that will affect the projections of 3.4 for 2018. The Minister indicated that the growth is as a result of several policy decisions taken by the government, including the reduction of the value added tax from 15% to 12.5%. He also noted that there are several projects to come on stream that will have a positive impact on the country's GDP. Favorable external conditions, coupled with hotel expansions and the addition of new flights, generated a strong recovery in tourism with stayover arrivals rising by 11%, the fastest growth in the Caribbean. The government, according to Dr. Raymond, is striving for 12% accumulative growth while in office. The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank has collaborated with the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council as part of Productivity Week 2018. ECCB's resident representative Sharon Ferdinand indicated that the bank is striving to ensure citizens of the Eastern Caribbean currency union are financially empowered through education. This year, for FIM, our focus is on conducting and protecting your business in a digital environment. With specific focus on cybersecurity, the use of strong protection in the forms of passwords, your antivirus applications, your firewalls, being aware of the sites that you visit, and protecting yourself from identity theft, online fraud, hacking of your accounts, providing guidelines for the use of ATM credit cards and other payment platforms. And I realize this is closely linked with innovation because if we are asking businesses and persons to embrace the technology, we have to also provide them with education and information on how to protect themselves. The ECCB will also be looking at new currencies and their impact on the business world. According to Ferdinand, an understanding of these developments and how they affect everyday life will assist citizens in their decision-making processes. Another area of focus is new currency, cryptocurrency, bitcoins, digital wallets. That's the new trend in the world today. Are we ready to embrace that? What do we know about that? Do we know what's going on regionally? Do we know what's going on internationally? What are the legal implications? What are the requirements? What's about regulation? Supervision? Who supervises? Who regulates? Lots of questions. How does that change the landscape for financial institutions? How does that change the way businesses do business? The surgical team at Victoria Hospital recently benefited from hands-on training on non-invasive surgery. Glenn Simon explains. The surgical team at the Victoria Hospital, including gynecologists, surgeons, anesthetists, interns and nurses, were recently engaged in a workshop in advanced laparoscopic procedures. Dr. Dawid Kabyé is the consultant surgeon and head of the surgical department at the Victoria Hospital. Some call it laser surgery, but it involves less incision, less cut on the patient, and you can do any type of procedure, any type of procedure with it. And in St. Lucia, we have been doing this kind of procedure, but at the basic level and has been a very difficult encounter because it requires an infrastructure of advanced equipment as a start-up and some consumables, which Metronik is one of the leading companies in this area. Dr. Kabyé is hopeful that the advanced laparoscopic surgery will soon be a regular procedure at Victoria Hospital and will put St. Lucia on an equal footing with the sister islands of Trinidad and Jamaica. However, continued investment in advanced equipment is necessary. We do have at least basic towers, which is quite okay, but if we are willing to take it to our next level, we need advanced equipment in an electro-surgical unit, meaning instruments where you don't need to stitch, but you will be able to seal blood vessels, to be able to join two organs without stitching it. And that is the advantage of this laparoscopic procedure I was mentioning to you. He highlighted the significant benefits of this procedure to the patient. It has a really great advantage to the patient. The patient will not require to stay in the hospital long term. They will be having surgery and go to the next day. Recovery to work is much faster. The complications are much less. The training was facilitated by officials from Medtronics. Medtronics, headquartered in Puerto Rico, is one of the leading global suppliers of medical devices. For the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Glenn Simon reporting. The Senusha Bureau of Standards, SLBS, is urging the public to utilize the avenues available for their protection as consumers. The call comes as the SLBS undertakes activities in commemoration of World Standards Day, observed annually on the 14th of October. The Bureau of Standards has a comprehensive compliance program designed to ensure that all imported and locally produced goods meet the compulsory standards required for retail. The program includes import monitoring and general market surveillance for quality assurance and control. Vern Emmanuel is the director of the SLBS. We invite the public to continue to be vigilant in the user standards and also in ensuring that they report anomalies to the Bureau. We have active workshops with importers and retailers with regard to the labeling requirements and the compulsory standards that exist in Senusha. The SLBS is currently investigating several matters concerning liquid petroleum gas or LPG, as well as other common household codes. LPG is an odorless gas and we add an odorant to ensure that persons can detect if there is leaks. We have recently had complaints about the concentration of those odorants and persons having difficulty in actually detecting the smell. And that for us is a major concern because the type of odorant produces a pungent smell which should normally be detected. And so if there are leaks and you cannot detect, it runs a serious risk of explosions, fires and danger and damage to persons. Director of the SLBS, Vern Emmanuel. This is NationBit. We're back after the break. Everyone is at risk forgetting a foodborne illness. While most foodborne illness cases are mild and go unreported, long-term health complications and even deaths can occur from a foodborne illness. Foodborne illnesses are caused by contamination of food at any stage of preparation. If you are a food handler involved in home-based food production, meat, fish, chicken or a big shop, as a food vendor, how you prepare food can put your customers at risk. Do you know the risks and how to avoid them? Welcome back. The Water and Sewage Company, Inc. Watsco encourages customers and the public to participate. Welcome back. The Water and Sewage Company, Inc. Watsco encourages customers and the public to participate. In a public survey launched on October 12th, the survey seeks to ascertain public views on the quality of Watsco's services. Communications and marketing officers Sherri and Gillard Williams directs potential users to the online survey. The survey is on SurveyMonkey and we have posted the link to that survey on our website. You can go to www.watsco-saintlusha.com and you will see under the news items that there is an article which tells you a lot more about the survey and why it is being done. It also includes a link that will take you straight to the survey so that you can answer. It only takes about 10 minutes to complete and we would appreciate if people would cooperate with us and to give us their views on the quality of our services. In addition to the online survey service, the survey can also be completed at various kiosks around the island. These kiosks can be found at the Watsco branches in castries, Souffre and Viewfort. The purpose of the survey is part of the review process that is being conducted by the National Utilities Regulatory Commission or the NUC and this process is done every three years. The survey is completely anonymous. Watsco employs customers to participate in the exercise and to cooperate with the company representatives who will be facilitated in the process. The Ministry of Health and Wellness is implementing creative strategies to sensitize the public on the importance of early detection. Breast cancer continues to be one of the most dominant illnesses among women today. Breast cancer is a malignant tumor that starts in the cells of the breast and can affect both men and women. As St. Luge observes cancer awareness months, Dr. Vesan Thekches, a cancer patient, took the opportunity to encourage men and women to get tested as early detection provides the best protection. I feel very well and I feel that the journey has been a journey with a number of challenges, but it has been a journey which has brought me to where I now feel I need to share my story with other women who are out there about they needing to make sure that they test themselves, that they always do the necessary screening and if breast cancer is discovered, that is not a death toll, that you can do all that is necessary, you are working very closely with your surgeon and your oncologist and their other care providers to come out of this stronger venue and into it. Dr. Thekches stressed on the importance of conducting periodical health examinations. Many women that I have been talking to are concerned or afraid of the pain that the mammogram brings, but I mean if it's a pain for 30 seconds and your life is much more important than we bear the pain, but I would like to use this opportunity to really impress upon women and especially those who are over 40 years of age to do their mammogram and for those who are below 40 years of age and even those who are after 40 years of age to make sure that you do yourself examinations. Cancer Awareness Month is being observed under the theme, be a best friend, early detection for your protection. From the Communications Unit in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Miguel Morris at reporting. I am Janelle Norville.