admin
Beatrice Tohodzayi-Ngondo Make A Difference
Something is going on. There are too many people collapsing and dying. There are too many people suffering strokes and with cancers. It does not take an expert to see that there is a big problem facing us.
As lifestyles shift, we see a rise in lifestyle-related conditions.
Lately, many people are being diagnosed with high blood pressure, hypertension, asthma, gout and other such conditions.
This cannot be ignored any longer. HIV was the biggest headache for this generation but others are coming up.
Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa was quoted recently voicing concern at the high number of sudden deaths and strokes.
He called on the public to go for regular medical check-ups so that any health problem can be sniffed out and dealt with early, before things get out of hand. Looking at the way we live as a society, however, this is not the case.
We are a people that seem to believe that if it is not broken we will not fix it. Thus one can nurse headaches, back pain, chest pains, leg pains and all sorts of other pains for as long as they can still walk, talk, run or laugh.
We only go to the clinic or the doctor when this pain incapacitates or grounds us. In some cases, people go to the medical centre only when they are no longer able to make decisions on their own. When the pain or the disease has eaten so much into someone that they can no longer work or take a pain killer to make the pain disappear, action is taken.
Every year during President Mugabe’s birthday interview, he shares tips on how one can live as long and as healthy as he has managed to do. One of the tips is to go for regular check-ups. He also touches on the dangers of alcohol abuse, eating unhealthy foods and too much sexual liberties as some of the problems that have afflicted this generation and thereby shortened life expectancy.
How many families are without providers because their parents collapsed and died due to conditions that could have been treated or managed had people found out earlier or lived healthier? It is time to walk the talk.
It is a fact that we are living in highly stressful times.
Today, so many people are seized with how to make things balance at any given time.
I recently spoke to some family members about how we were at risk of losing what we love most if we paid little attention to health issues, while thinking we are working hard.
Just think how some people work hard so their families can have a better life. They travel, work late, work during weekends because in their mind if they do not do so, their families will starve and not enjoy a high quality life.
While they drive themselves hard like this so they build or buy the best houses, send children to the best schools and purchase the best in food, clothing and furniture, among other things, they deny their families and loved ones a chance to spend time with them, which is the greatest gift that any child, spouse or partner wants from their loved ones.
In many relationships the complaint is that people do not spend enough time together and do not pay attention to the emotional and physical needs of their partners because they focus too much on the material aspect.
At the end of the day, you have men and women who work hard to build homes they do not get to truly enjoy.
Someone was even joking the other day that they worked so hard to buy a US$10 000 leather lounge suite but they hardly sit on it. Because it is in a second lounge, which visitors do not utilise much, the only people likely to be enjoying the suite are the house maids who take turns to clean her multi-storey house. Is that not sad?
Granted that people have to work and when you have children, the need to make ends meet becomes even more pronounced. However, there is need for some balance. Some of the diseases and conditions people are suffering from now are a result of the way people live. People are taking on too much and not even taking time to eat well or exercise. As a result some just collapse due to stress while some die because of exhaustion. The snacks and take-aways that many munch on as they try to clear the work that never gets done are also killing some.
Others drink too much as a way of de-stressing while others braai too much as they try to digress from home and work. Others eat too little while some eat too much. Others do not have time to go and get checked out when they feel sick. All they do is hope it will go away.
But then, many more do not get to go for the check-ups because it is not that simple. The ordinary Zimbabwean does not just go for a full physical check-up. To find out how one’s liver, heart or kidney is, does not come cheap.
As a result, people find out when it is too late. With the medical aid system in shambles (very few medical aid cards are being accepted though members contribute monthly) and many people using cash to access health care services, a medical check-up becomes a luxury.
Things like regular dental visits, which must be done twice a year and screening for sexually transmitted infections or even pap smears which women should strive to do every two years are foregone because of the costs involed.
This needs to change.
The call is for policy makers to address the challenges in the health sector and medical insurance sectors. Local clinics and public health facilities must work.
While this happens, people also need to understand that there is need for a balance in all we do. That deviation may spell the difference between a life of quantity and one of quality. Which shall it be?
Online Reporter