PRESS RELEASE – THE public was treated to free health checks over the weekend thanks to a health fair jointly organized by Nagico Insurances and the Ministry of Health and Wellness.
Whether you wanted to exercise, sample local teas or smoothies, do your health checks or just know your status, the health fair organized by Nagico Insurances and the Ministry of Health and Wellness had a bit of everything for all ages. Held on Saturday October 6th at Nagico’s premises in at Reduit, organizers felt the activity met its objective. Janelle Alexander-Dupre is a Family Life Educator with the Ministry of Health.
“Most persons as you know we work. We have 8 to 4, 8 to 4:30 jobs. Sometimes we work shifts and not all the time you will get the opportunity to visit the doctor or to go to the health centre and in this way persons are able to come to places where they get free treatment and the get to know what their levels are and what is needed to make the changes in their life style.”
Dupre also outlined the various entities who participated in the Health fair.
“It’s almost like an opening for us for breast cancer awareness month. Here we have the Ministry of Health’s partners including Environmental Health, the Renal Unit, St. Lucia Diabetes and Hypertensive Association, we have Planned Parenthood, we have Nutrition Department, we also have persons from Crossfit, we have Frances Rub and we also have smoothies being done; all these things to show persons what we need to do to maintain a healthy lifestyle.”
Corporate Services Administrator at Nagico, Vicky Forde said as a leading health services provider on island Nagico felt it important to give back.
“We’re leading in medical health and we have seen as a health provider the claims that do come in and we know it’s important to take on preventative care for persons. So Nagico felt it important to do that and we know the rising cost of medical is extremely hard right now. So we wanted to give something back to persons that are in need and is essential for their lifestyle. So we wanted to put on a holistic health and wellness fair where it doesn’t only cover the testing but advising you on how you can improve your lifestyle and maintain it.”
Matthew Brandford was among the many persons who took advantage of services at the health fair. He said he welcomed the health education free testing which was available and encourage more men to pay greater attention to their health.
“What I have to tell the men is that it’s important to take care of your health because since men are the main breadwinners, although that is going out of the way now, but men need to take care of their health because they are looked up to and you don’t want your son or daughter to live the rest of their life without having their father who could have been there for an extra ten years, an extra five years. So it’s important that men put their health first in everything that they do.”
The event was gear toward families targeting persons of all ages to be more interested in knowing their health status through regular health checks, proper nutrition and exercise.