Healthcare in Bermuda has historically focused on curing patients and treating problems once they have happened.

However, with changing eating habits and a fast-paced society setting the stage for chronic conditions, medical practitioners at the Bermuda Wellness and Outreach Centre argue it is time for a new philosophy.

“We need to see more emphasis on the preventive side and funding for lifestyle approaches, programmes,” said Leonard Gibbons, a lifestyle intervention specialist with a doctorate in preventive care.

Dr Gibbons explained that Bermuda’s acute care model, which works well for acute care conditions, becomes a problem when trying to address chronic conditions.

Caren Griffith-Fadlin, a medical practitioner and preventive healthcare provider, added: “It’s the premise that you’re waiting for people to get sick and then you jump in to try and save them instead of helping people to remain well. We need a new system now that is going to address the new challenges that we have.”

Dr Griffith-Fadlin said focus had in the past been placed on tackling communicable diseases. However, as eating habits have changed and people are moving less, “the set-up for non-communicable diseases has arisen”.

More than 75 per cent of the island’s population is overweight or obese, according to the Steps to a Well Bermuda 2014 survey, and a third of all adults reported a diagnosis of raised blood pressure or hypertension.

Furthermore, the Well Bermuda health promotion strategy in 2008 highlighted that the leading cause of deaths in Bermuda was now circulatory diseases.

“You’re living in a society where the environment doesn’t encourage wellness and this is a big problem,” Dr Griffith-Fadlin said. “Everywhere you go there is something unhelpful in front of you.”

She drew on the example of grocery stores where it is commonplace to see unhealthy snacks lining the checkouts and fruit and vegetables were strategically located on the periphery.

The Bermuda Wellness and Outreach Centre was set up a year ago to promote wellness and to prevent medical problems from happening in the first place.

It offers healthy living and diet advice programmes, as well as weight loss and management services. It also has an antigravity treadmill and spinal decompression machine that are unique on the island.

It is part of a global trend towards preventive care, Dr Griffith-Fadlin told The Royal Gazette.

But both doctors stressed that making this shift happen in Bermuda would take a concerted effort of all involved, from policymakers to insurance companies.

“In terms of helping people to change, you need to create that environment, that support system. We also need to make sure that people have accurate information,” Dr Gibbons said. “How can we require people to be healthy if they don’t have the accurate information that they need? We need to be supplying them with that.”

Dr Griffith-Fadlin added: “One aspect is making sure that people are responsible for their behaviour but the other aspect is that the powers that be need to create that environment for people to live healthily more easily.

“Bermuda Wellness is only a piece in the puzzle and we don’t stand alone — there is no way that on our own we can make the changes that we want to, even with the outreach aspects.

“The Ministry of Health and the Government need to get really involved in the process of changing the way we do things to create an environment that makes it easier for people to be healthy.”

But she stressed that insurance companies also needed to play a part, adding that the practice had had trouble with claims being returned.

“If their insurance company is going to cover them to get some medication and not cover them to get wellness services, then what are they going to end up doing?

“They’re going to get medication and the medication is not a cure in a bottle, it’s a kind of Band-Aid over what is going on.”

If the underlying cause of a condition is not treated, she said “you’re just going to end up back in the same position you were in before”.

And with many chronic conditions costing a lot of money, Dr Gibbons also stressed the important role preventive care could play in reducing healthcare costs.

He said flying heart attack patients overseas for treatment, for example, could routinely cost more than $100,000.

But by focusing on wellness, such events could be avoided and the money could be put towards preventing chronic conditions from happening, he said.