MINISTRY OF HEALTH, ANAMBRA ADVOCATES FOR HEALTHY LIVING ON WORLD HYPERTENSION DAY
By Chris Chikelue
Anambra State Ministry of Health in partnership with the World Health Organisation (WHO) has continued to drum the importance of continuous checking of ones Blood Pressure and Blood Sugar Levels as they carry on with their daily activities.
As May 17 rolled in and the World commemorated Hypertension Day, the next day being Monday, Health Workers held a lot of activities to make it memorable and for the people to remember that living healthy by checking their blood pressure and blood sugar levels are very important.
In Anambra State, the day started with free checks to ‘know your numbers’, by the Ministry of Health at the Jerome Udoji State Secretariat, Awka and a good number of the state workforce benefitted from the gesture.
During the free checks referrals were made to the health clinic at the Udoji Secretariat where proper drugs were administered to persons with seemingly high blood pressures and high blood sugar counts followed with counselling on how to manage the situation.
A road walk was made where the Non Communicable Diseases – the department of the ministry of Health, organizing the day’s programme and some other health workers went round Aroma, Awka with danceable musical tracks played by a Disk Jockey (DJ) in a moving minibus to alert the people of the state on the need for regular checks starting with the one happening free at the State Secretariat.
At noon the Commissioner for Health, Anambra State, Dr. Afam Obidike was at the Data Operation Centre (DOC) of the ministry to speak to members of the Press Corp who in turn would disseminate the story of the World Hypertension Day to a wider audience of Ndi-Anambra and the world.
The theme of this year’s celebration is, ‘Controlling Hypertension Together: Check Your Blood Pressure Regularly, Defeat the Silent Killers’.
While with the address, the commissioner disclosed that the ‘Operation Know Your Numbers’ was introduced by his administration four years ago to keep proper check on the health being of the people.
“This was as a result of complications arising from people slumping and dying, stroke, cardiac issues and hypertension. These numbers represent figures generated during checks on high blood pressure, cholesterol, sugar level.
“Good enough these things can be managed in two ways such as pharmacological and non pharmacological ways.”
While explaining, Dr. Obidike said that the pharmacological way is the use of drugs while the non-pharmacological method is the use of non drug items to control or stay away from hypertension. He said, “we have diet and exercise that is where healthy living comes into play.
“We are the product of what we eat and we must begin to check it applying frequent exercise and managing your weight gain at all times”.
“We want to reduce these incidents of cardiovascular disease as health workers so today as we are marking Hypertension Day; we also want to reaffirm that we are checking our blood pressure free of charge in all primary and secondary health facilities.
“We have at least a functional primary healthcare centre per ward in Anambra State.”
Disclosing that one out of every ten people in the state is hypertensive, the commissioner said, “in all things whether you are hypertensive or diabetic, you should watch what you eat; food in excess is poisonous, exercise and reduce alcohol intake. There should be a dietary plan, the ministry will come up with it soon”.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr. Obiageli Uchebo and Directors of different departments of the health ministry were at the press briefing.
Chris is of the Ministry of Information, Anambra State