Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony on Tuesday announced that the Guyana Government will soon introduce a screening programme within schools that will help in detecting various health issues among students.
This initiative, which will first be piloted at a select institution and then rolled out countrywide, will cater for the screening of students at “critical points during their school year,” the health minister said.
He noted that het programme will look at areas of dental care, eyecare, and hearing as well as a number of “other parameters.”
“We see school health as a very important aspect of delivering healthcare in Guyana,” Dr Anthony expressed, noting that it is an area that has been ignored over the years.
In addition to the screening programme, the Health Minister said the government plans to encourage the formation of health clubs in schools.
“With these health clubs, we’ll be promoting and sort of reinforcing some of the things that they’ve been taught in school pertaining to health so that they can live and embrace a healthy lifestyle.”
According to the Health Minister, one of the goals is to get young people more physically active.
“Young people, in a lot of ways, have been sitting down and playing games, board games and video games and they’re not as active as they ought to be. So, we’re trying to encourage physical activity, football, volleyball, cricket and so forth.”
Another key area, the health minister noted, is nutrition. “We want them to choose the right foods, avoid fatty foods, avoid trans fats, avoid sugar sweetened beverages, avoid salt and so forth. So, in the health clubs, we’ll have programmes that are geared to teach some of these things.”
Dr Anthony made these disclosures at an event to hand over the Ministry of Health various packages of sports and hygiene equipment as part of the “Promoting Safe & Healthy Learning & Living Environments” Project supported by Canada and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Funded by Canada and implemented by UNICEF in partnership with the Government of Guyana, the project is already making a difference in the lives of children here. In Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Essequibo), for example, healthcare and community workers have been trained and are delivering Early Childhood Development services.
Canadian High Commissioner to Guyana Mark Berman & UNICEF representative Nicolas Pron, spoke about the project’s goal to provide gender responsive programmes for health that caters to both boys and girls, and the benefits for vulnerable children, especially those in the hinterland and host/migrant communities.
It was also explained that the supplies handed over will support the expansion of school health clubs and boost adolescent health services across selected hinterland communities. Nearly 10,000 children will benefit from this aspect of the project. “I want to emphasise that this project is not only gender-responsive but we aim for it to be gender-transformative,” the UNICEF representative said at the event.
