KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, April 10 – The Health Promotion Unit within the Ministry of Health, Wellness and the Environment and the staff of the Park Hill Health Centre collaborated to launch the Park Hill Health and Fitness Group last Thursday in Park Hill.
This is the second group of its kind. The Biabou Health and Fitness Group began operating four years ago.
The Park Hill Health and Fitness Group, like the one at Biabou, was established in partial fulfilment of one of the Health Promotion Unit’s 2013 key performance indicators.
Efforts are now being made to establish another group in this regard on Bequia later this year, Permanent Secretary Luis de Shong said in a release.
The goal of a Health and Fitness Group is to promote health and active aging, and the objective is to provide an enabling and supportive environment which will allow participants to:
- Be actively involved in their own health care
- Continue to be physically and mentally active
- Take part in community social and cultural activities
- Engage in spiritual upliftment.
The fundamental aims are to reduce the incidence of disabilities associated with chronic non communicable diseases and also to reduce the cost of health care.
This is good news. However this system should be encouraged in the school to help the population when they are kids, not after the horse has left the stable. This is something for the education department. It’s much easier to integrate such a system in the school curriculum.
I am proud to see improvements in the Health care system, nevertheless I do hope when the statement was made of reducing cost in health care it was meant that person would spend less and not the Government and Health Care Departments. Although through innovative ideas and programs we have promoted health and prevention of sicknesses among the public there will always be a need for up-grade in our hospitals, clinics and training of medical personnel; on this note, I will vote for a system that delivers a reasonable Health Care plan for SVG any day, where the people MUST contribute to what they receive with maintenance of top quality equipments, pharmaceuticals and alternative care, this way Health Care Administrators do not have to fight to “make do” with what they have with no appreciation or consideration from people on a whole.