AS Guyana joins the world in celebration of Men’s Health Week, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony has used the occasion to encourage men to take control of their health and well-being.
The minister issued the call on Friday during his address to persons gathered at a health fair hosted by the Health Ministry’s Men’s Health Unit in commemoration of International Men’s Health Week, which commenced on June 13.
At the health fair, Dr Anthony highlighted several issues which men deal with as it relates to their health. He specifically spoke on the issue of men rarely visiting health centres for regular medical check-ups, which, he said, should not be the case.
Dr Anthony said that men must have an attitudinal shift in order to take charge of their health and not only report to hospitals and health centres when they are sick.
“That is something that we want to promote, get men to come to the health centres to get check-ups so that we can detect things earlier and fix them if they’re there,” the Health Minister said.
He related that many males suffer from a number of chronic, non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, kidney disease, and high blood pressure among other things. To this end, he noted that those and other diseases could be prevented, but there must be a shift in thinking.
With such a shift in thinking, Dr Anthony believes that men could be able to work towards living healthier lifestyles.
In sharing his advice on how men could improve their lifestyles, Dr. Anthony said men could reduce their salt, sugar, and alcohol intake and even exercise more.
He said: “We got [sic] to start looking at how we will change our lifestyles, so we got to look at our diet, what we eat, how much we eat, we got to look at things like salt; we have to reduce that. We got [sic] to also look at consumption of alcohol and reduce it; we have to look at smoking and remove it because it’s not good for you,”
Dr Anthony advised men that it is important that they start to take control of their lives, even as he mentioned that it is never too late to start taking action.
Meanwhile, at the health fair, men were able to benefit from on-site health services which included prostate screening, HIV testing, screening, and counselling, along with mental health services.