St. Vincent and the Grenadines has made remarkable achievement in health care over the past twenty years. Since the declaration of Health for all by the year 2000, at Alma Ata in 1978 the health indicators have shown significant improvement.  The natural growth rate of the population has fallen over this period from 2.8 to 2.4, the total fertility rate is 2.4 and the population grows at a rate of 0.13% per annum with a dependency ratio of 61%.  Life expectancy at birth has been estimated at 72 years and infant mortality rate is 16.3 percent per 1000 live births.