Wound care opportunity for Barbados economy

Some recent research forecasts that the global wound care market is projected to grow from US$21.5 billion in 2023 to US$28.6 billion by 2028. There is an opportunity for Barbados and the Caribbean to tap into this growing area of the health economy, says Mariam Botros, chief executive officer of non-profit entity Wounds Canada. Her […]

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Some recent research forecasts that the global wound care market is projected to grow from US$21.5 billion in 2023 to US$28.6 billion by 2028.

There is an opportunity for Barbados and the Caribbean to tap into this growing area of the health economy, says Mariam Botros, chief executive officer of non-profit entity Wounds Canada.

Her organisation is partnering with others on the establishment of the Caribbean Wounds Network (CariWN), including CariWN principal Joel Alleyne, who shares her view on the vast potential to reduce health costs, sustain worker population productivity, and cash in economically on the wound care industry.

CariWN officials say it has secured more than US$1 million in in-kind contributions from organisations such as Wounds Canada, Crucible International, Abraxas International, and other key partners, to kick-start this vital initiative.

The wound care market’s vast potential is illustrated in new research from international firm MarketsandMarkets, which said that having reached US$21.5 billion in 2023 this sector was poised to grow by 5.9 per cent over the subsequent five-year period.

It said this expansion “is characterised by rising adoption of regenerative medicine and advancements in products like dressings, devices, biological skin substitutes, sutures, and staplers”.

“Emerging markets in India, South Korea, and the Middle East offer significant growth opportunities, despite challenges such as high costs and limited awareness of wound care practices. North America leads the market due to its high incidence of chronic diseases and surgical procedures,” MarketsandMarkets said.

“Skin and wound care is an emerging market. There have been a lot of advances with skin and wound care that can support patients and keep health care costs maintainable, affordable and feasible. Wounds are preventable, many of the hard to heal wounds are preventable,” Botros said.

“We can prevent a lot of the catastrophic and human burden that takes place associated with amputations, infections, hospitalisation, and even death. So we’ve got a window of opportunity to make a difference, and we’re looking forward for the knowledge exchange.”

Alleyne, who is a senior official of Crucible International and Abraxas International and also involved in Wounds Canada, said there was a chance for Barbados and the region to reduce an economic burden while exploiting economic opportunity in the area of wound care.

“We set up the Caribbean Wounds Network earlier in the year with strong support from Wounds Canada and our company Crucibles is the major sponsor of this over the course of this year,” he said.

“We have support from the University of West Indies, which was important, and we’ve had warm welcomes from the Ministry of Health and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and so on. But this is a Caribbean initiative, not a Barbados initiative, and what we’re trying to do is make a difference through a non-profit public private partnership.

“I am not a clinician, but the stats that you will hear from the clinical people, when somebody loses a limb to diabetes, as an example, their mortality rate is worse than having a cancer diagnosis, it’s stark. The other key stat is that four out of five of the diabetic foot amputations shouldn’t take place,” he said.

Alleyne continued: “When people look at this, they say what’s the cost to the health care system? Our estimate is that in the Caribbean it is US$7 billion. When you take somebody out of productive years, a couple of things happens. One is you might take them out because they are disabled from a chronic disease or through a problem that happens for a number of years. And then there’s often a premature death.”

He reiterated that it was important “to look not only at the medical costs of dealing with these things, but what’s the cost to the economy?”.

Alleyne asked: “What’s the cost to Barbados,  to Trinidad, to Jamaica, to Antigua, Guyana, when we take people in their productive years out of the system, because of a wound-related problem and chronic disease problems?

“The thing in terms of prevention is to not have those problems happen, not to have that person leave economic productivity. That’s way higher than just the cost of treating wounds and wound care.

“The flip side of this is the economic opportunity, which is something that we’re also working and looking at.”

Botros’ message to Barbados is that while advanced therapy for wound care “is a growing space and a growing area and you can expand in it, you have to have trained expertise”.

“Part of our partnership is training wound care champions to be able to leverage and utilise appropriately some of these wound-related advanced therapies, to increase the market share in the wound care market, to be able to provide evidence-based care to patients to continue to build healthier communities,” she said.

Alleyne said part of the plan going forward was “looking at how we get access to the right supplies and devices to treat wound care in the Caribbean”.

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